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Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Review: A Fate Inked in Blood

A Fate Inked in Blood
(Saga of the Unfated #1)
Publication Date: February 27, 2024
Hardcover, 432 pages, Del Rey
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Romance
 
A shield maiden blessed by the gods battles to unite a nation under a power-hungry king—while also fighting her growing desire for his fiery son—in this Norse-inspired fantasy romance from the bestselling author of The Bridge Kingdom series.

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. It was foretold such a magic would 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. The greatest test of all, however, may be resisting her forbidden attraction to Bjorn. If Freya succumbs to her lust for the charming and fierce warrior, she risks not only her own destiny but the fate of all the people she swore to protect.

My Review

Do you miss shows like Vikings or The Last Kingdom? Are you craving magical worldbuilding with battle axes, shields, and mischievous gods? Then pick up A Fate Inked in Blood.

A Fate Inked in Blood starts out a bit slow, as it's setting up the main character, Freya's, bleak life as a fishmonger's wife. And boy, is it depressing. But the story picks up pretty quickly when the jarl come to mess things up and expose all of Freya's secrets. And of course, that's when she meets Bjorn, the fire axe wielding son of the jarl
.

 Freya is a complicated character. She wants to be a warrior, but she's forced into terrible positions by the men around her due to her loyal nature and desire to protect her undeserving family members. Bjorn, meanwhile, is secretive, but suave. He's got that Hawke/Rhysand personality, but he's a tad more patient; he waits to see how things work out before acting on anything. It was quite frustrating when you are constantly hoping he'll come in and save Freya from all of the terrible situations she's put in. But, he just bides his time. His power is pretty cool, though. I want a fire axe. Freya's shield power is cool too, but it's still a bit of a mystery how her power plays into the king-making prophecy, though I do have some theories for book two.

The side characters in this story don't have a ton of dimension to really make them stand out. Snorri is the corrupt jarl. Ylva is the evil, jealous stepmother type. And Geir is the worthless brother. Everyone else is barely in the story enough to really care about them, which is fine. It's a fantasy romance story, so that makes sense.

As for the worldbuilding itself, while Jensen used existing Norse gods and concepts, like Thor, Loki, and Valhalla, I think it could've been relatively easy for her to not use them at all and create her own god system. I would have preferred that, honestly. It was a little jarring seeing Thor mentioned midway through the story. I do love the idea of having people blessed with powers given to them by the gods, though. It's really interesting to learn about the different abilities. And the action that results from those powers is intense too. I hope it gets even more ramped up in the sequel.

All in all, if you like books like Adrienne Young's Sky in the Deep, Jennifer L. Armentrout's Fall of Ruin and Wrath or From Blood and Ash, or Tricia Levenseller's Warrior of the Wild, then A Fate Inked in Blood is the book for you. There's a solid hate to semi-friends to lovers storyline mixed with forbidden lovers and a very chaotic ending. I'm super excited to see what happens next.

*Note: I received a copy of this book to review from the publisher via NetGalley. This in no way affected my opinion/review.

Saturday, February 10, 2024

Stacking the Shelves: The Untitled Edition

 "Stacking the Shelves" is a weekly haul meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews and Reading Reality. It allows book buyers to share their accumulation of books with the online book-loving community.

I can't believe February is already almost halfway over when January took 8,000 years. Like last week, I don't think I did much. Just worked, worked out, slept, ate, rinse and repeat. I'm ready to decompress this weekend, though. I plan on finishing up House of Flame and Shadow and taking many naps.


My FairyLoot January Adult sub was delivered to my parents' house, and they came by this week and were able to drop it off. The book is The City of Stardust by Georgia Summers, which has an awful cover. Honestly, I think it's just the shiny font. It's giving "Graphic design is my passion." Honestly, the regular cover is prettier, so I'll be turning this one inside out to show the reverse dustjacket. 
 

I downloaded what will probably be my last book from Kindle Unlimited, Phoenix Chosen by Ashe Moon, this week. I canceled my KU sub and it ends February 14, I believe. So I need to read this one quickly if I want to get it done before then. I need to read some of my physical books and Amazon is a shady company, so I thought it'd be better to just cancel. If I want an ebook, I can just buy it. 
 
Well, that's all for me. Let me know what books you have bought/received lately.

Tuesday, February 6, 2024

January Wrap-Up & February TBR

Well, the first month of 2024 has officially ended, and I feel like I barely did anything worthwhile. I basically just worked and vegged out the entire time. There's more sunshine out now, though, so hopefully that motivates me to get things done. I definitely feel less energized when it's dark outside.

In this wrap-up, I’ll list the books I read, the books I reviewed, the books I bought/received, and my TBR for next month. Now, let’s get this bookish party started!

Books Read in January

Gold: 4 stars

Another month where I only read one singular book. Good grief. To be fair, it was a long one, but I really need to pull myself together. I've just had such a terrible time with finding books that actually interest me. I want stuff similar to Silver Under Nightfall, Crossing Acheron, and/or the Beautiful Monsters series, but there's nothing really like that that I've been able to find. Again, to be fair, I haven't looked very hard, though. I've been too distracted by TikTok.

Books Bought/Received in January

I don't have a ton to talk about this month, thankfully. I've been pretty good at limiting my book orders so far this year. I hope it stays that way, but now that I'm going to ApollyCon, I'm not sure what will happen. I'm volunteering, but still... There's potential for financial disaster. In total in January, I bought four books and received four books, all of which were physical copies.

All of the books I received in January were FairyLoot preorders. They included the Red Rising trilogy and the December Adult book, Faebound by Saara El-Arifi. I didn't receive any of the books I ordered in January within the month of January, however. They either came in February or are set to come at a later date. Those include two Barnes & Noble orders, Gothikana by RuNyx and House of Flame and Shadow by Sarah J. Maas, and two FairyLoot orders The City of Stardust by Georgia Summers, and Tales of the Celestial Kingdom by Sue Lynn Tan. The City of Stardust was the January monthly book and Tales of the Celestial Kingdom was a preorder. Oh, technically I guess I did receive a copy of Gothikana in January, but it was water damaged, so the replacement version didn't arrive until February.

Currently Obsessed With

I actually have new things to talk about this month! Woohoo! Though I am still watching The Office reruns. No big changes there.

I started watching The Last Kingdom on Netflix in mid-January. I'm on the last episode of season one, I believe. I think there are four seasons in total, so at least I have something to watch for a bit. I also binged the entirety of Netflix's The Night Agent with my parents on a random Saturday. We started episode one in the morning and didn't stop watching until we'd finished episode ten at 8 p.m. that night. Oh, and the night before, I'd watched a bit of Queen Charlotte with my mom. She hadn't watched it, so I just introduced her to the series.

January TBR


Super big surprise, Charm by Tracy Wolff is on this list. Yes, I still haven't finished it even though it's been like six months. Ugh. I'm going to read it, it's just not calling to me right now. I also need to read A Fate Inked in Blood by Danielle L. Jensen, as it's a NetGalley review ARC, and I need to read House of Flame and Shadow for my book club. The Last Sun by K.D. Edwards is a book I started during a reading slump that I'd also like to finish. I'm almost 100 pages into it.

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Okay, well, that's the month of January, plus some February sneak peeks, all wrapped up into one post. Do you have a wrap-up post for last month? If so, share in the comments!

Saturday, February 3, 2024

Stacking the Shelves: The HOFAS Edition

 "Stacking the Shelves" is a weekly haul meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews and Reading Reality. It allows book buyers to share their accumulation of books with the online book-loving community.

It's been two weeks since I actually received a book in the mail. That's pretty good. Honestly, I'm hoping to slow down my purchasing a lot in 2024. I don't think that's super realistic for me, but I'm going to pretend to make a good effort at it. As for my regular life, nothing amazing to note there. Just chugging along. Though I was selected as an ApollyCon volunteer for 2024, so that should be fun.
 

So I kind of lied. I did actually get a book last week, but it was damaged in transit (stupid, rain), so I had to get a replacement. That was Gothikana by RuNyx. My copy not only was completely soaked through, but it also had a major dent on the bottom that had likely occurred before the book was even packaged. Yeesh. B&N, pull yourself together. But, they sent me a replacement that looks great, so I can't complain too much. My copy of House of Flame and Shadow also arrived. It's freakin' ginormous. Ugh. I don't even want to read it just because it's so long and I know it'll take SJM five more years to get book four out. Boooooo...
 
Well, that's all for me. Let me know what books you have bought/received lately.