Hild by Nicola Griffith

When Hild’s father Hereric, heir to the throne of Elmet, is poisoned, she moves with her mother and sister Hereswith to the court of her uncle King Edwin. Hild’s mother Breguswith has ambitions for both her daughters, especially for Hild because she has dreamt that she will be ‘The light of the world’. Hild receives visions and does become a very important pawn for the king who has high ambitions.

I wanted to like this book so much. I was so looking forward to reading this. It’s set in Northumbria during the 7th century and retells the story of Saint Hilda. So this is not an easy review to write, because I didn’t like it at all.

The story is certainly not bad: Hild finds herself in a kind of Game of Thrones where her uncle Edwin, as ‘overking’, wants to keep as much power to himself as possible. Alliances are constantly changing and Hild assists him with advice and sometimes joins the battle field. In the meantime, a new religion is on the rise and priests want to do away with the old superstitions – including an heretic seer.

But this book is so difficult to read. So many names, such slow language and difficult old words. Normally, I don’t have any problem reading in English but now it felt as if I wasn’t even reading English. You are forced to plough through family trees and events far removed from what Hild herself experiences. And those events aren’t even important for the story. I just needed to skip sentences and parts to be able to even understand what was happening. And this took the pleasure out of it.

The writing style reminded me a bit of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall series, but Mantel does this in a for me well-known setting of Tudor characters and with more bravo. But this setting was completely new to me and I just would have liked a more normal writing style.

In addition, Hild herself is just not a likeable character. She trots on all the time about her ‘light of the world’ prophecy, adjusts visions so it suits her, she doesn’t really care about anyone except her half-brother Cian with whom she’s in love – which is problematic enough in itself. I didn’t like her and I didn’t get her.

I’m not feeling it and I find this very unfortunate as so many people tend to love it. So I’m probably missing something?

⭐⭐

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Have you ever been disappointed in a popular novel?