Loki's Wolves: Book 1 (Blackwell Pages, #1)

by K.L. Armstrong and M.A. Marr

In Viking times, Norse myths predicted the end of the world, an event called Ragnarök that only the gods can stop. When this apocalypse happens, the gods must battle the monsters - wolves the size of the sun, serpents that span the seabeds - all bent on destroying the world.

But the gods died a long time ago.

Matt Thorsen knows every Norse myth, saga, and god as if it was family history - because it is family history. Most people in the modern-day town of Blackwell, in fact, are direct descendants of either Thor or Loki, including Matt's classmates Fen and Laurie Brekke.

But knowing the legends and completely believing them are two different things. When the rune readers reveal that Ragnarök is coming and kids - led by Matt - must stand in for the gods in the final battle, Matt can hardly believe it.

Matt's, Laurie's, and Fen's lives will never be the same as they race to put together an unstoppable team to stop the end of the world.

• ISBN10: 1907411305
• ISBN13: 9781907411304
• Publish Date: 7 May 2013 (first published 1 January 2013)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 5 March 2021
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Little, Brown & Company
• Imprint: Little, Brown Young Readers
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 368
• Language: English

Reviews

[wyvernfriend]

Matt Thorsen knows that his ancestor was Thor, literally. His family are left with some abilities. Fen and Laurie Brekke are the descendents of Loki, a seer sees that Matt will be pivotal in Ragnarok and maybe it might be a good idea, from his family's point of view, for him to fail, they're not the only ones who want him to fail. He goes on the run and starts gathering more gods descendents around him.

It's an interesting story, I'm left wanting more. The illustrations really add to the story.

[Nessa Luna]

I don't remember how I found out about this series (probably through Goodreads), but I immediately knew I had to get my hands on it. Because it's about Norse Mythology, in the style of Percy Jackson. Yes, it sounded super perfect, but was it? I can wholeheartedly say, yes. Yes, it was.

Loki's Wolves tells the story of Matt, Fen and Laurie, who are the descendants of the Norse Gods (Thor and Loki), who are supposed to be the substitutes for these gods during Ragnarök, the apocalypse that will destroy everything if the gods don't act. As a direct descendant of Thor, Matt is chosen as the one who needs to kill the sea serpent Jormungand, but to do that he must find all the descendants in time, convince them to fight along with him, and find some very special items as well.

When I first started reading it, I had been expecting it to only be about Thor and Loki, because they are the best known gods of the mythology, and of course with Marvel having movies and comics about them I had been very afraid. But this book has more gods (and goddesses) in it than I had expected, and I loved it. I won't spoil it for you, of course, but one of the descendants they tracked down was really one of my favourite gods (though I think that may have been caused by the Almighty Johnsons, in which this god is just amazing). In the end, I liked all the descendants, and I really hope we'll get to meet more of them in the next two books. Please give me Heimdall or Hodr or Frigg or Bragi or just any of them please.

The story was very simply written, seeing as it's a book for teenagers (from I think the age of twelve to sixteen maybe), but that didn't really bother me too much. I was too busy enjoying the story and noticing all the references to the actual mythology (like the Valkyries and the Mare/Mara, and yes yes yes I loved it). The characters were so like their God-ancestors, and that made me really happy. The Blackwell Pages is a great way to learn about Norse Mythology, if you're not into reading 'adult' books like Runemarks and The Gospel of Loki. And yes, I am still also looking forward to Rick Riordan's take on the myths, yay!

There were multiple POV's in this book, but they didn't bother me too much. That was probably because the story was written from a third-person narrative, rather than first-person. And also because the names of the character whose turn it was was above the chapter title. The three POV's were Matt, Fen and Laurie (obviously) and they were all pleasant characters to read from. Honestly I didn't really find that much difference between their characters, but that might have just been me.

Another amazing thing about this book? It has illustrations. Yes, illustrations! In between the pages of this book, there are some scenes that have been drawn, and wow honestly these images look really cool! It really adds something to the story, it makes you able to imagine the characters better and just wow, look at them:


I probably spend way too much time looking at these images, but honestly they look so cool! I really hope there's more of these images in the other two books in this series.

So yes, in the end, I loved Loki's Wolves, even though I was afraid it might be too much about Thor and Loki (okay the three main characters who have POV's in this story are descendants of these gods, but other than that it wasn't that much actually). If you are looking for a nice bookseries about Norse Gods while waiting for Rick Riordan's series, go and read The Blackwell Pages (Loki's Wolves, Odin's Ravens and Thor's Serpents).

My opinion on this book in one gif: 

[Chelsea]

I was really excited starting this book. I love Kelley Armstrong SO MUCH! Melissa Marr though, I don't know. I feel like she may have brought this book down a little. I feel like this book has basically the same structure as every other fantasy action book. It reminded me of Percy Jackson because of the whole Gods thing. It was different enough that I still enjoyed it though. It's definitely written for a way younger audience than me though. That's probably the only reason I didn't give it five stars. I didn't enjoy it as much as a 13 year old would.

I didn't appreciate the close resemblance to Percy Jackson and how these kids are related to the Gods. I like how they picked the Norse Gods though, that made it a little different. I don't know a lot about the Norse Gods so it was pretty cool learning about them all. The characters were all pretty cool. I didn't really have any problems with them. They weren't fantastic though. This whole book was good, but not great. Maybe for younger kids it's great but being older it's not as good as I hoped.

I would still recommend this book though. Especially if you're under 16 or so. Give it a try!

[Melanie]

Not sure what I'm going to think of this book. It is more for kids 8-13, but I love the author. I've read several of her adult and young adult series, so I'm willing to give this a try. Also, it is about the Norse mythology, which I would love to read more about. I'm a few pages in and so far, I'm enjoying it. We'll see where it goes from here.

Very cute book. The story has only just begun. This book reads a lot like a young adult. It only mentions a few times that the characters are middle school aged. I know some about Norse mythology, but this book does go into explaining the myths, so if you are not familiar with it, don't let that scare you off. This might even be a good and easy way to learn more about the Norse myths before moving on to an adult series about the Norse. I'm going to look for some.

If you don't mind YA books, then this would be a good book for you. If you don't like YA, then I would stay away from this. I will say that so far there hasn't been any romantic entanglements, though one person mentions that she has a boyfriend, but we never see them together.