This is a very silly book. You could even call it ridiculous. Absurd even!
So why was I charmed by it? I have no defence! For charmed by it I was, despite it containing many things that in my more serious real life I find very very annoying: sexism, misogyny, dubious consent, prescribed gender roles, fatphobia, etc.
Magnus is a Viking in the year 999 and he has 10 children. He decides to do two things.
- Give up sex.
- Go on a trip with his children to explore new lands.
He leaves his married daughter behind to care for his farmstead and his eldest son to represent him at his father’s estate. He packs his longship with treasure and the rest of his children and off he sets.
During that journey, he travels forward in time to the present day (2014) and ends up on a longship in the middle of a movie set. There he meets Angela and it is an instant connection.
For reasons, Magnus and his children (and his secret treasure) end up staying with Angela. There’s a bit more to this part of the story but I won’t spoil it for you. There’s a vineyard and farming and sabotage and sex. The romance is woven around these events, but it can be boiled down to ‘this love is their destiny’.
The present day language is very different and so Magnus is a bit befuddled by it. Usually this just makes him more charming, if infuriating. For example, Angela and Magnus are about to engage in coitus and this is how the conversation goes:
“It’s been too long for me. A year. I’m so embarrassed,” she confessed.
“You are embarrassed! Ha! It has been nearly a year for me as well. And I am a man,” he confided.
“That is such a sexist thing to say.”
“I am a sexy man,” he replied.
Speaking of sexy times, some of the language in the book is just plain ridiculous. For example:
“Arousal rippled over Angela’s skin like erotic fantasy fingertips.”
There is yet another ridiculous thing about the language in this book: the exaggerated, italicised self-talk that Angela and Magnus engage in. (NB: the excerpt below uses boldface instead of italics.)
For example, in this scene from the start of the book Magnus is reflecting on the pressure to take part in political life in 999 Norselands:
Where would his children fit into such a scenario?
Where they could squeeze in.
Would he have to take another wife?
For a certainty.
Did he want another wife?
Bloody hell, no!
But how long had it been since he’d lain with a woman?
Far too long! I am afraid to look at a woman these days for fear my seed will fly into her womb.
Are the children annoying? As a rule I don’t read romance novels that feature children. I find so often children are poorly written and thus take me out of the story. All of the children in this story are written really well. I found them endearing for the most part, and Magnus is a very good father to all of them.
There is one “feminist” in this story: Angela’s cousin, Carmen. But she is painted as a man-hater who persists in telling Magnus jokes about how dumb men are. I can’t tell if it is some kind of satire or if she’s just there to act as a foil for Magnus, but you need to desensitise yourself a bit in order to read it. To use the terminology of 2014, this is not a politically correct book. But the overall tone is so jovial and over-the-top that it’s hard to know if any of it is meant seriously or if the writer is poking fun at everything. I suspect the latter.
This book is impossible to grade. I had a tremendous amount of fun reading this book but it doesn’t fit the mold of an A or B. It’s not middling because of the previously mentioned fun factor. I think this might be that rare treasure: an F+.
Objectively, I should not like this book. It ticks none of my usual boxes. But it was a good time.
