Today is my stop on the blog tour for Chaos Rising by Lyra Wolf, organised by Storytellers on Tour. Thank you to Justine and Timy for having me along on the tour.
Please take a look at the other excellent bloggers who are also taking part in this tour here. There is also an international giveaway of a signed paperback copy of this book later in this post, so stay tuned until the end!
Book Information
Chaos Rising by Lyra Wold
Series: Nine World Chronicles (#2)
Published: April 9, 2021
Genre: Mythic Fantasy, High Fantasy, Romance
Pages: 314 (Print Length)
Content Warnings: Mild gore, PTSD
Book Description
Let’s start Ragnarok, they said. It’ll be fun, they said.
Nothing pisses off a trickster god more than being imprisoned for five hundred years and not being able to annoy Thor. There are other reasons, secrets, and promises behind Loki’s rage, but that’s for Loki to know and the gods to find out—preferably painfully.
When the chance to start Ragnarok presents itself, Loki feels the apocalypse is as good a way as any to burn Asgard to the ground. And, it is, until the gods reveal their own teensy, tiny little surprise for Loki.
Suddenly, Loki has every reason in the worlds to stop them from ending. But this is Ragnarok, and one does not simply stop the apocalypse.
Chaos is all well and good, so long as Loki is in charge of it. Except chaos isn’t about to start taking orders from anyone, not even the god of pot-stirring himself, and it has a universe to destroy…
My Review
I was given an electronic copy of Chaos Rising by Storytellers on Tour in exchange for an honest review. Thank you so much, Justine, Timy and Lyra.
Chaos Rising is the second book in The Nine World Chronicles series by Lyra Wolf. It starts in the present day, with events following on from the prologue scene from Truth and Other Lies.
Loki has managed to escape his five hundred year torture in a cave beneath Basel, and is now determined to avenge the deaths of his beloved Sigyn and their twins Nari and Narfi. The story is once again told in first person which enables the reader to feel Loki’s anger and pain all the more keenly. He discovered in the previous book that he is ‘The Destroyer‘, destined to bring about Ragnarok, the destruction of all the realms and of the gods themselves. In Chaos Rising Loki is a heart-broken, devastated, tormented and vengeful god. We experience his gut-wrenching depth of feeling with regard to the broken oath between himself and his one time lover, Odin:
As it is, I thought about you every day as well,” I said, stepping towards him. “How I would kill you. How I would cut out your bowels. How I would watch you burn as I drowned in the venom eating me alive…
Loki the avenger seeks his daughter Hel in order to persuade her to let him use her army of the dead to fight against the gods at Ragnarok. She requires Balder’s death as payment, since she wants him by her side forever. Loki happily kills him using a weapon made from mistletoe which is one of the many well-known Norse myths that Lyra Wolf skillfully weaves into her Loki story.
Odin shows Loki that he saved Sigyn – she is alive after all and living in Alfheim with her new fiancé Falael, who Loki wickedly keeps referring to as ‘falafel’. There is a lot of humour and wit peppered throughout this book, and I thoroughly enjoyed every instance. Loki’s giant wolf son, Fenrir is now a vegan living as a man in Vienna, posting daily food photos to social media. With the approach of Ragnarok, Fenrir’s anxiety has been growing. He has been meditating, using vitamin supplements and herbal remedies to try and keep his anger under control, and the wolf firmly contained within him – but the sight of his father Loki, is too much for him:
A pressure has started building in me. Like a thunderstorm raging in my head. It’s been lashing out, and when I saw you, Father…
Loki changes his mind about Ragnarok, since he does not want any harm to come to Sigyn, despite her having moved on and found love with someone else, but it’s too late. Events are out of control and Ragnarok is approaching inevitably. Loki finds he is increasingly unable to control his chaos.
There are elements of the classic tragic love triangle in this story. After all the torment and torture Loki has been put through, to then find his beloved Sigyn is now engaged to a beige-wearing elf is unbearable. I found myself rooting for him to win back the girl.
There is a lot of descriptive detail about the locations used in this novel, which helps to bring them to life. For example, in Vienna we are shown the Spanish Riding School, Hotel Sacher and St Stephen’s cathedral, among other famous locations. While in Vienna, an exciting, fast-paced action sequence unfolds, as Odin and Loki battle the army of the dead, while nonchalantly carrying on a conversation about their past relationship and how much they had loved and hurt one another. This cinematic scene ends with them leaping on board a subway train pursued by the dead army, much to the horror of their human onlookers. This was my favourite part in the book, I could easily visualize it and imagine it being made into a movie. I also really enjoyed the humour of a scene in which Loki, Fenrir, Falael and Sigyn are about to head out into the streets, which are being rampaged by the army of the dead, and Sigyn starts arming them all with kitchen implements:
Sigyn walked back out and handed him a serrated knife. Fenrir took the overly large and overly pointy serving fork she held out to him. “Which is?” I asked, refusing a spatula crusted in layers of dinners past. I’d really have to get them some proper weapons…
Chaos Rising is a thoroughly enjoyable book and I would recommend it to anyone adult.
There are some sex scenes and a fair amount of violence and gore in the final fast-paced and heart-stopping battle scenes of Ragnarok, so I do not think it would be appropriate for a younger audience. I can’t wait to read the final part of the trilogy, At Realm’s Edge!
Add Chaos Rising to your To Be Read list:
www.goodreads.com/book/show/55813907-chaos-rising
Buy Chaos Rising here:
Read my review of Truth and Other Lies here
The Giveaway
Prize: A signed paperback of Chaos Rising by Lyra Wolf –INTERNATIONAL!
Starts: April 14th, 2021 at 12:00am EST
Ends: April 21st, 2021 at 11:59pm EST
Enter here or click the banner below:
About the Author
Lyra Wolf is an author caught between worlds. Ours, and those of the characters that won’t stop pestering her.
A lover of travel, Lyra has lived all over, from the cornfields of the Midwest, to the rugged mountains of Switzerland. Now, she calls the swamps of Central Florida, where “The Mouse” rules as supreme overlord, her home.
When Lyra isn’t at a theme park, listening to classic rock, or otherwise procrastinating, she writes about fantastical places and the complicated people who live there.
Lyra has earned a B.A. in History and M.A. in English.
Contact Lyra Wolf here:
Website: www.lyrawolf.com/
Twitter: twitter.com/lyrawolfauthor
Instagram: instagram.com/lyrawolfauthor
Facebook: www.facebook.com/lyrawolfauthor
Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/author/show/20139297.Lyra_Wolf
Newsletter (Subscribers get a free novella!): https://lyrawolf.com/newsletter
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