Mist

May 13, 2013
A kick-ass Valkyrie with baggage teams up with a brooding elf to battle Loki and a band of Jotunar (frost giants) after they enter the human world of Midgard from the Great Void in Krinard’s urban fantasy series opener. Mist, a Valkyrie living in San Francisco, fights off a Jotunn and rescues Dainn, an elf dressed in rags. He was sent by the goddess Freya to protect Mist, but she doesn’t think she needs much protecting. Then she learns her live-in boyfriend was really Loki in disguise. As Mist comes into her full power with Dainn’s help, he grows unsettled by the part she will play in Freya’s strategy to defeat Loki. Krinard’s background as a romance novelist lends her an ability to write well-defined, multi-dimensional characters who help this story stand out in a crowded field. All that’s missing is a primer on Norse mythology for readers not in the know.

June 1, 2013
First of a series about the return of the Norse gods, from the popular author of fantasy and romance yarns (Bride of the Wolf, 2010, etc.). San Francisco resident Mist seems like a normal person, with a job, a boyfriend and an apartment, and doesn't care to think about the past: She's a Valkyrie, and her task is to guard the invincible spear Gungnir. But during a bitterly cold winter, a frost giant attacks her in a public park, she befriends a homeless man who turns out to be an elf, Dainn, and her boyfriend, Eric, reveals himself as the trickster god Loki--and he proves it by stealing Gungnir and vanishing. Dainn explains that after Ragnarok, the gods became stuck in Ginnungagap, the void, and only now have discovered bridges to Midgard, aka Earth. Loki, who has the usual ambitions to rule the world, has the backing of the frost giants and soon hires himself a piratical entourage to do his bidding. But the bridges that should have enabled the other gods to come to Midgard have disappeared, so it looks as if Mist and Dainn will have to handle Loki and the giants all by themselves. Among all this, Krinard introduces characters--a pair of homeless kids with psychic powers, a Japanese-American lawyer--but doesn't give them anything meaningful to do. The plot churns mightily without any particular conviction, and amid the hustle and bustle, there are lots of battles with magic and swords. It all has an air of being phoned in. Still, Krinard has a large following, and the fans will probably want to check it out.

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