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Chapter by Chapter

A mostly Young Adult book review blog run by a mother and daughter team.

Odin’s Ravens (The Blackwell Pages #2) by K.L. Armstrong and M.A. Marr

Odin's Ravens  - K.L.  Armstrong, M.A. Marr

After reading the first novel in the book seriesThe Blackwell Pages, Loki’s Wolves by authors K.L. Armstrong and M.A. Marr—I couldn’t wait to read the next installment in the series. Odin’s Ravens was intense, awesome and tons of Norse mythology as main characters Fen, Laurie and Matt try to stop the ensuing end of the world, Ragnarok. I wasn’t really sure what to expect from the novel, especially since Loki’s Wolves held a lot of surprise twists and turns that I didn’t see coming.

In Odin’s Ravens takes place right after where Loki’s Wolves left off. Fen, Laurie and Matt have all headed straight to Helen’s realm, the land of the dead, to get their friend Baldwin back in hopes of re-writing the sequence of myths and stop Ragnarok from coming. Heading into Helen’s realm, the trio faces threats they’ve never faced before, like two-headed jotuns, zombies and evil zombie kings who will stop at nothing to thwart Matt’s plans. However as their adventure continues, Matt and the cousins find new allies, old friends and Valkyries all ready for the end of days to arrive. What the trio doesn’t expect are for old faces to make reappearances, secrets to be revealed and a choice to be made for when Ragnarok arrives.

Odin’s Ravens has messed me up. And I mean that in a really good way. The entire time I spent reading can be broken up like this: I was either a) On the edge of my seat, hoping that nothing went wrong b) freaking out because the possibility of something going wrong was very real or c) something wrong would happen and I had no idea how Matt, Laurie and Fen would go about fixing it. Odin’s’ Ravens is written in a way that will leave readers not only intrigued but also unsure of what will come next, with twists and turns just waiting to reveal themselves.

Readers who have read Loki’s Wolves know that Matt, Fen and Laurie are left on a quest to find mjolnir and avert the end of the world. Yeah, totally cool man. Except that Odin’s Ravens takes that and shows that there may not get to be such a hopeful, simple outcome with Ragnarok fast approaching. As I said before things just get bad, bad, bad for the characters or make it look  like things are about to go pretty bad. It made for an exciting story and the novel’s conclusion—readers will be left begging for more. To know what will happen next (because seriously it ends on such a high note).

A big thing in Odin’s Ravens is character development. In Loki’s Wolves there’s still a lot of feuding between Fen and Matt, neither of them really consider each other friends at first, Fen starts off as a cutthroat little crap—but that all changes in Odin’s Ravens. Fen’s character changes so much in the novel and it’s not hard to notice, he grows loyal to the group that he’s with, fesses up to things he wouldn’t in the novel prior. Plus characters with smaller roles in the last novel return and are expanded on a little bit more.

There are still a lot of questions that have been left wandering through my mind ever since Odin’s Ravens has reached its end. What happens next is the first that comes to mind, the next being do things resolve? Does anybody die in Ragnarok? Will I be left weeping over fictional characters? Only the authors know, but I have a pretty good feeling that the next novel will leave readers on emotional rollercoasters as Odin’s Ravens did.

I would have to recommend this series to readers who are big fans of Norse mythology. Don’t let the fact that this is a middle-grade novel deter you, the writing is still pretty amazing and the plot is great. If you want a novel that is non-stop action and adventure with no romance involved you’ve gotta give The Blackwell Pages a read. Like, right now.

Source: http://www.chapter-by-chapter.com/review-odins-ravens-by-k-l-armstrong-and-m-a-marr