Blog Tour - Viper's Daughter

Blog Tour Review - Viper's Daughter 
by Michelle Paver




For two summers, Torak and Renn have been living in the Forest with their faithful pack-brother, Wolf. But their happiness is shattered when Renn realises Torak is in danger – and she’s the threat.

Viper's Daughter plunges you back into the Stone-Age world of Torak, Renn and Wolf: a world of demons, Hidden People and exhilerating adventure.

Welcome back to the BookWormHole, and today we're off to a Stone-Age forest for a fantasy adventure from Michelle Paver.

Now, I'll be honest with you (of course!) When I was first offered a proof of this book, I said no. I've never read any of Michelle Paver's books before, and this is book seven. That's a lot of backstory I'd be missing out on. But then I saw quite a few of my favourite authors and book bloggers raving about how great Michelle's writing is, and the quality of this series. I was offered it again, and decided to give it a go. 

So I'm approaching this as a complete novice to the Wolf Brother world. I can safely say that it works really well as a standalone novel. There's clearly a lot of history there, but I was able to pick up enough to easily follow what was going on in this one novel. If anything, it left me wanting to go back to the start of the series and follow these character arcs from their beginning. Renn and Torak are great characters. I loved the relationship between them, and Torak's pursuit of Renn into the frozen north is an excellent spin on the quest story. I also really liked all of the different clans, their different philosophies and ways of life, the differing ways they live in the same primitive world. The whole world building is really excellent, giving us a vibrant, very alive world, even when the characters get towards the edges of that world. The relationship between men and animals is also a particular favourite of mine, and I enjoyed that mix of hunter/prey and spiritual respect for the wild.

The magical elements were also really well done. The book blends a primitive prehistoric setting with strong fantasy elements very effectively. That's something that particularly makes me want to go back and explore the earlier books in this series. That sense of magical otherworldliness grows throughout the book, until it reaches a brilliant, demonic climax that had me gripped.

The only element that didn't particularly work for me was seeing the human world through the eyes of the wolf. I liked a lot of the stuff from the wolf perspective, but found the wolf-terms for humans and human objects to be a little irritating at times. This is purely a personal preference though, and is a very minor gripe.

Viper's Daughter is packed with magic, adventure and mystery, which is exactly what I'd hope from a book like this. I loved the characters and their relationships, with their ups and downs, were very well realised. It's a series I'll definitely be exploring further.

I'm giving Viper's Daughter four and a half moons.

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Viper's Daughter by Michelle Paver is published on 2nd April by Zephyr, an imprint of Head of Zeus, priced £12.99 in hardback. 

I was sent a proof copy in return for participation in the blog tour and this honest review.

And don't forget to check out the rest of the blog tour! Details are below.