Title: A Fate Inked in Blood
Author: Danielle L. Jensen
Publisher: Random House Worlds
Publication Date: February 27, 2024
ISBN: 9780593599839
Synopsis:
Bound in an unwanted marriage, Freya spends her days gutting fish but dreams of becoming a warrior. And of putting an axe in her boorish husband’s back.
Freya’s dreams abruptly become reality when her husband betrays her to the region’s jarl, landing her in a fight to the death against his son, Bjorn. To survive, Freya is forced to reveal her deepest secret: She possesses a drop of a goddess’s blood, which makes her a shield maiden with magic capable of repelling any attack. And it’s been foretold that such magic will unite the fractured nation of Skaland beneath the one who controls the shield maiden’s fate.
Believing he’s destined to rule Skaland as king, the fanatical jarl binds Freya with a blood oath and orders Bjorn to protect her from their enemies. Desperate to prove her strength, Freya must train to fight and learn to control her magic, all while facing perilous tests set by the gods.
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This is a gorgeous book with a stunning cover and beautiful sprayed edges, but as much as I love to look at it, this book was moderately okay in terms of plot, character development, world building, and overall story arc. It’s not often I get a chance to read a novel based on Norse mythology, and this story did spark my interest in Viking culture in a way that I haven’t experienced since watching the first season of the Vikings tv series. Still, I struggled a bit as my own general interest and a moderate FMC with a substandard romance plot warred with one another throughout the duration of this book.
Freya’s journey is difficult and filled with opposition as she is controlled by the male figured and family members who operate with their own selfish desires in mind. She is often seen as a pawn in others games, so it’s easy to empathize with her and to see where her frustration and rage comes from. She’s often hot-headed, impulse-driven, and doesn’t think things through before she acts — and there is very good reason for why she is the way she is. She rises to display immense amounts of strength. As she learns to discover the depth of her power and eventually finds it within herself to make a decision to choose herself first.
Still, despite her strength, her relationships with pretty much every other character in the book fall flat. Her dialogue is dreary, unrelatable, and often anachronistic. Her familial friendships are limited, her friendships are mentioned but never demonstrated, and the romance is virtually non-existent with little to no depth. I still don’t really know why she and Bjorn are attracted to one another, but they probably could have called it quits early on and the plot wouldn’t have changed much.
The story itself does demonstrate the violence of the Viking society as well as the deep spiritual elements of the culture, playing on the mythology and power of the gods and goddesses. I would love to see Jensen lean even further into that mythology in this series. She does play with the magic a bit, demonstrating Freya’s and Bjorn’s powers both in battle and outside of battle, which is a more interesting and fun approach.
All in all, it’s a fine series, but one of the overhyped-underdelivered types of books.
Happy reading!
Worn Pages and Ink 