My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Summary from Goodreads
From the New York Times bestselling author comes a breathtaking fantasy of a cursed kingdom, warring clans, and unexpected salvation.
Bayr of Saylok, bastard son of a powerful and jealous chieftain, is haunted by the curse once leveled by his dying mother. Bartered, abandoned, and rarely loved, she plagued the land with her words: From this day forward, there will be no daughters in Saylok.
Raised among the Keepers at Temple Hill, Bayr is gifted with inhuman strength. But he’s also blessed with an all-too-human heart that beats with one purpose: to protect Alba, the first girl child born in nearly two decades and the salvation for a country at risk.
Now the fate of Saylok lies with Alba and Bayr, whose bond grows deeper with every whisper of coming chaos. Charged with battling the enemies of their people, both within and without, Bayr is fueled further by the love of a girl who has defied the scourge of Saylok.
What Bayr and Alba don’t know is that they each threaten the king, a greedy man who built his throne on lies, murder, and betrayal. There is only one way to defend their land from the corruption that has overtaken it. By breaking the curse, they could defeat the king…but they could also destroy themselves.
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REVIEW
I received an e-ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This is going to be a hard review to write. Not because I didn't enjoy the book. People I plan on re-reading, re-listening to the audiobook and hope that Amy Harmon writes spin-off novellas and invent a way for a certain couple to be together. Needless to say, this is Amy Harmon's finest work in the fantasy genre. I didn't think that "The first Girl Child" would top The Bird and the Sword duology, but it.
In a fantasy world where an island stands in the middle of the sea and clans rule with a king on top. Where monks have the power to choose kings and runes hold magic in them, the story begins with the birth of a boy. Bayr is a bastard whose mother was cheated in love, whose father is power hungry and whose uncle Dagmar is one of those monks. Bayr's mother, curses the people of their land to not give birth to girls and slowly as the decades' span, the curse will wipe out their people.
Bayr grows to be an extraordinary young man with the power of ten men and the heart of a sweet, beautiful soul. And as plots and lies thicken, suddenly the first girl child is born; out of the blue Alba appears and the mysterious Ghost, a young woman, start to live in the monastery too.
The story is told in third POV and spans almost two decades of secrets, plots, power-hungry men who never gave worth to their women before and now they find themselves, almost dying without them. The beauty of this world is the perfect balance between the Norse mythology, Viking lore, magic and a touch mention to Christianity. But the focus is not as much to the religion, while it plays a role, but to the relationships between the characters, the secret love blooming over the years and the fear that it will never be reciprocated.
This world is vast and I hope to see more stories coming from the characters of this novel. When I finished the book, I was happy and yet really sad. Because while I did like the story I realized that I was rooting for another couple too and it was hopeless.
Amy Harmon's writing is stellar and I don't know if my heart can survive another masterpiece by her.
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