This book seems to be one of those that you either love or hate. I loved it and, while it definitely has some issues, it's only a debut novel so I look forward to future books from Huxley.

I've always had an affinity for Vikings and Viking-age culture. This book features more of the "Germanic" tribes - the Auiones of modern-day Denmark - and that's what initially drew me in. I haven't had the opportunity to read very many MM books that take place this far back in time and it's a treat.
Huxley does seem to have done quite a bit of research, especially when it comes to everyday village life such as housing and meals, the religion (Germanic paganism rather than Nordic mythology), the hierarchy of the tribes and their neighbours, as well as some of the Roman side of things. Everything here is pretty believable and realistic and it kept me interested even when the drama of the relationship between Agnar and Marcus and those around them started to become a bit monotonous.

Besides the setting and details, the relationship itself between the MCs could take place at any time. It didn't seem particularly historically accurate. Now, I'm not really educated in same sex relationships of the early 12 BC – AD 16 when Rome was carrying out these Germanic campaigns besides the stereotypes of Spartans and their lads but this doesn't seem like it would have been as readily acceptable as shown here by either Romans or Barbarians. Huxley does make some comments in the writing that illustrates that the Barbarians around Marcus weren't happy about him being around but that had more to do with him being of the enemy and/or foreign rather than him having sex with one of their prize warriors.

It's also not explained well why Marcus is basically fluent in the specific Barbarian language that Agnar and his people speak when he's still young enough to have only been on campaign for a few years and constantly fighting. Not exactly the time to learn a language. Who would he have even learned from? It was obviously just a convenient plot device to move the story on but a little more detail is definitely needed here, like maybe Marcus was in charge of captured warriors and befriended one or was forced to learn it by his superiors and therefore spent more time on that than on the battlefield, etc.
A lot of reviewers have also complained about the sex scenes. I didn't find it too gratuitous because sex would have been more open and expected in that time period, with slaves and fellow villagers alike. We can't put our current values and morals on peoples from that far back. However, besides the first time they couple when Agnar reaches for some salve, there is never any prep or lube of any kind mentioned. This is particularly glaring in one of the final times when we know they haven't had sex in at least a few weeks and Agnar just thrusts in - Huxley's exact words. It would not have been pleasurable for either party and would have actually been pretty medically devastating. When Agnar uses the salves and other similar herbal remedies in the beginning of the book, I had hoped that maybe Agnar was like the village apothecary or at least had a good bit of medical knowledge learned as being one of the village leaders, but I think Huxley may have forgotten that detail as they wrote on because it's never visited again. It would have greatly benefited both Agnar and Marcus for Marcus to learn what was in that healing salve and to be able to make it for later battles and accidents but it's literally never mentioned again.

Besides those issues, I really did enjoy reading this and even had to put it down more than once to bite my nails about what maybe was going to happen next.
If you enjoy historical romances with lots of historical context, warrior cinnamon rolls, battles, drama, and plenty of gore, you should enjoy this.