A Fate Inked in Blood by Danielle L. Jensen
Romantasy/Mythology/Norse Mythology/Fantasy
414 Pages
Book #1 Saga of the Unfated
Published by Del Rey (27th February 2024)
Purchase from | Amazon AU | Amazon US | Amazon UK | Dymocks | QBD | Fishpond AU* | Booktopia |
My rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Freya spends her days gutting fish, and her nights avoiding the advances of her disgusting husband, dreaming of nothing more than putting an axe in his skull. All the while, she wishes for more. She wishes to be like her brother, to run screaming into battle, to fight alongside her brothers and sisters in a shield wall, but she has resigned herself to the fact that that is not going to be her life. Until the day her dreams become reality after her husband betrays her to the regions Jarl, pitting her against the Jarl’s son, Bjorn, in a battle to the death. In order to survive, Freya must reveal her deepest, most hidden secret, that she carries a drop of a Goddess’s blood which allows her to invoke the power of Hlin – making her shield impenetrable. It was foretold that a shield maiden with such powers would unite all of Skaland under the rule of the man who controls her fate. Believing that he is this man, he binds Freya under a blood oath, and weds her, then forces Bjorn to protect her with his life. In order to survive, Freya must learn to fight and control her powers, as well as pass any test that the Gods put in her path. Though no test is greater than that of resisting the temptation of Bjorn, a man who sees her for more than just what she can do. If she succumbs to her lust, she threatens not only hers and Bjorn’s safety, but the lives of all those she’s sworn to protect.
I was lucky enough to find this book in my mailbox after going back and forth on whether I wanted to request it from the publisher. I was so bloody excited when it arrived, let me tell you! I was also nervous, because, while I love Greek and Norse mythology, mythology from around the world if I’m honest, I find that they tend to drag a bit for me. I’m not sure why, I just tend to struggle a bit with the pacing and generally get bored pretty quick. I am so glad that I didn’t let that deter me with this book though. This was freaking phenomenal from the first damn page, and that feeling did not change for me at all throughout the entire story.
I loved the whole ‘drop of a God of Goddess’s blood’ aspect to this story. To know that there are all of these characters out there that have been touched by the many different God’s and Goddess’s just makes me so excited for the world of the Unfated series. It makes me feel like there are so many branches that Jensen can take this series as well as the possibility of potential spin offs too. I really enjoyed the different characters that we have already met who have been touched by the Gods. Learning about their powers was fun and something that I really enjoyed within the story.
From the first page, literally, I was hooked. The story starts by giving us a brief understanding of Freya’s current life and what she really wants. We quickly learn that her husband is an awful person and I felt that Jensen did a fantastic job of getting the reader to feel the oppression and sense of being trapped that Freya felt within her own life. I loved how quickly the story progressed into meeting Bjorn and being betrayed to Snorri. There was no lagging pace while we lived her life day in and day out, we were given what we were needed to understand how desperate Freya was for something more, and that was enough to set the tone for her character as well as the story. I loved Bjorn from the first meeting. I felt like his sassy mouth and his penchant for flirtatious banter worked perfectly for his character and I enjoyed every single second of page time he was given. I won’t lie, I freaking LOVE the Vikings TV series, so I was probably picturing that Bjorn more than the dark-haired one described in the story, either way, it worked and I’m not mad. I actually found it pretty fun to read names and such that I was already familiar with from different texts that I’ve read about supposed history and what we do know of the Vikings, as well as names that I recognised because of the show. I’ve always had a bit of a love for Norse mythology and history and had a fascination with the Viking culture that we do know of. There were many characters in the story that I became quite fond of, and many that I wanted to smack with an axe, but all of them were well written, four-dimensional characters that jumped off the page. Freya did end up frustrating me quite a bit towards the very end of the story, but I’m trying not to let that get to me because I know she has her reasons, and I’ve no doubt that she’ll become a character that I absolutely adore again at some point.
The story itself was incredibly well written and I cannot wait for book two. While this book does end on a cliffhanger of a sort, I still feel like the main story in this instalment was brought to a close, leaving the overarching story open to continue. The pacing was brilliant and never dropped for me once. As I’ve said about fifteen times now, it grabbed me from page one and did not let up. The descriptions of the land were fantastic and really dropped me into the middle of it all, I could feel the biting cold, I could smell the sweat and blood, and I could hear the clashing of metal. There was a slow build, almost frantic in nature, as more things come to light, and we see that there is more to Freya and her path than meets the eye. From the scene where Freya must undergo a ritual in order to be accepted by the Goddess, I’d already picked a couple of things that I felt were going to happen and be revealed at a later point. This can sometimes make a story quite tedious, not this one though. The anticipation I had of the characters realising what I had, only served to build the need to keep reading and ignore all adult responsibilities. I was correct in my assumptions, but I didn’t see one reveal coming which I thought was brilliant.
All in all, this book lived up to the hype for me, and blew my expectations out of the water. I’m thrilled that I enjoyed this one so much, and I’ve since recommended it to friends, before I had even finished reading mind you, who have subsequently purchased it as well. I am absolutely HANGING for book two and it will be pushed to the top of my reading list when it does become available. I struggle a lot with mythology stories, even though I absolutely love all of the different mythologies that are found across the globe, yet this book managed to hit it out of the park for me. If you love a gritty, romantasy, set against the background of Skaland and Norse mythology, pick this one up, seriously. I cannot recommend it enough.
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