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Hotel Fen (The Prophecies of Ragnarok #1) By Meri Benson and Marie Sinadjan

March 17, 2024 by C. J. Daley (CJDsCurrentRead) Leave a Comment

Rating: 8/10

Synopsis

The Shining meets Norse mythology in this tale of star-crossed romances, ancient prophecies, and revenge.
Are you ready for the vacation of a lifetime?


Victor has always had a passion for Norse history and mythology, but after hitting a dead end with his book on valkyries, not even that passion is enough to move him forward. Just when he’s ready to abandon the project, he receives an email: he’s won a free trip to Hotel Fen, a remote vintage resort in the Scandinavian Mountains.

Silje has always felt that her life was fairly unremarkable. She cares deeply about people and that has led her to find her purpose at a nursing home in Oslo. When a resident dies and leaves her an all-expense paid vacation package to Hotel Fen, however, she takes the opportunity to experience something different.

It all starts innocently enough, with a little meet-cute in the hotel elevator that takes forever to arrive on their floor. But the longer Victor and Silje remain together, the more dangerous the hotel becomes, and the more they question where reality ends and the impossible begins.

Review

I won an audible code for this, I believe from the narrator, so I gave it a listen. 

This book meshes hotel horror with Norse mythology. It starts with Victor arriving at the hotel after receiving a free trip from a radio show he can’t seem to remember participating in, kind of a la I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (sans wrong answer). When he meets Silje, the woman staying in the room next to him, he can’t help but feel as if he’s known her for a long time. It is from there that things get a little… strange. 

It mixes magic, eternal and fated lovers, action, suspense, and expansive knowledge of Norse mythology. It handles the pacing pretty well while only feature a handful of characters. But it does miss the mark of atmospheric horror for me, which I believe had to do with length. The blurb mentions The Shining, which are tough shoes to fill, but this has a shorter opening, so I didn’t get that eerie back-of-the-neck creeping feeling that I was expecting. It’s not truly missing the mark on the comparison, it just need more of that build up.

I look forward to checking out more by the authors. The two of them put their Norse knowledge on display, and the added elements of horror were definitely a step in the right direction for me. Great Norse rep and writing representation from a Filipino author.

Filed Under: Fairy Tales, Fantasy, Horror Fantasy, Reviews, Romantic Fantasy, Urban Fantasy Tagged With: #Fantasy, #Horror, #HotelFen, #MarieSinadjan, #MeriBenson, #Norse, #ThePropheciesofRagnarok

About C. J. Daley (CJDsCurrentRead)

I was an avid player of Who Wants to be a Millionaire: Lord of the Rings Edition. When the millions turned out to be fake, and answering that ‘Athelas’ was another name for ‘Kingsfoil‘ grew tiresome, I retired. Now I'm a horror author and an avid reader of all things sci-fi/fantasy/horror/mystery.

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