I just can't be bothered to finish this. This is such a formulaic and typical historical fiction novel and I find myself extremely bored.

I picked this up mainly because of the setting, as I am Finnish and I have never read a book or seen a movie or anything that is set in Finland but written by an outsider. The writer obviously has Finnish roots but is from the USA. The novel moves around the Finland/Sweden border areas.

And to be honest, I found listening to the audiobook narration difficult. It's ok to not be able to pronounce words that are foreign to you, but I still insist that as an audiobook narrator it's your job to try. This guy obviously had no idea. All he would have needed were a couple pointers and he could have done a good enough job.

I was fine with the pronounciation being what it was but I could not deal with Henrik's nickname being Ricky. That just made me laugh. I have no idea how it was spelled so it could be a pronounciation issue, but I can't figure out what his nickname could have been for this pronounciation to make any sense.

Similarly I had no idea what Laestadius' daughter's name was. According to the reviews, it's Willa. Good to know.