★★★☆☆ True lust conquers all

A Fate Inked in Blood

Danielle L. Jensen

** spoiler alert **

Meet our first-person narrator Freya. She's a beautiful Norse woman who knows how to swing a sword. Her hair color is not at first mentioned, but we presume she's the blond pictured on the cover.

Meet Bjorn. He's a big, extraordinarily handsome black-haired warrior. Much of his conversation consists of boasts of his sexual prowess, and women he's favored talk to other women about how great he is in bed.

Freya and Bjorn meet cute (Freya literally throws a fish in his face), and of course they are immediately possessed by a desire to jump each other's bones. You know Freya feels this way because she's the narrator and you're in her head. You know the feeling is mutual because you're not an idiot -- besides, he eventually tells her. Before the end of the book they act on this desire, and we are presented with a detailed description of moist bits rubbing against other moist bits, along with the sizes of some of them. Both Freya and Bjorn belong to the "bigger is better" school of thought.

They do eventually use the "L"-word to describe their feelings for each other, two of them, in fact. "Love" is an "L"-word, and so is "lust". The first of these they use mostly when in the throes of the aforementioned bones-jumping, so to be honest, it was, for me, the "Lu" word that carried more conviction.

If that sounds like your kind of thing, then go for it. It was not mine, though. I am not a fan of romance novels, and this is not one, so you might think that would be fine. But I discovered that a novel that tries for romance and misses was even less to my taste.

What saved the book from a one or two- star rating was the swords and sorcery. We eventually get a revelation of gods and plots and stratagems that is rather good.

I thank NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for an advance reader copy of A Fate Inked in Blood. This review expresses my honest opinions. Release date 27-Feb-2024.

Amazon review

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