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A Fate Inked in Blood by Danielle L. Jensen

Fantasy

A Fate Inked in Blood

by Danielle L. Jensen

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Quick take

Grab your sword and shield! This epic story of romance and bravery will have you amped up for love and the battlefield.

Good to know

  • Illustrated icon, 400

    400+ pages

  • Illustrated icon, First_in_Series

    First in series

  • Illustrated icon, Salacious

    Salacious

  • Illustrated icon, Romantasy

    Romantasy

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. 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 has sworn to protect.

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Get an early look from the first pages of A Fate Inked in Blood.

A Fate Inked in Blood

CHAPTER 1

My mother taught me many skills to ensure I’d make a good wife to my husband. How to cook and clean. How to weave and sew. Where to hunt and gather. She’d have been better off teaching me the restraint needed not to stab said husband when he proved himself a short-witted drunkard with an acid tongue . . .

For my temper was being sorely tested today.

“What are you doing?” Vragi demanded, his breath reeking of mead as he bent over my shoulder.

“Exactly what it looks like.” I ran the tip of my knife down the fish’s belly, its innards spilling outward. “Cleaning the catch.”

Huffing out an aggrieved breath, Vragi jerked the knife from my hand, nearly slicing open my palm. Snatching up another fish, he opened its belly and scooped out the innards into a bloody pile before stabbing the tip of my knife into the wooden block, his technique identical to my own. “You see?”

“I know how to gut a fish,” I said between my teeth, every part of me desiring to gut him. “I’ve gutted thousands of fish.”

“I don’t like the way you do it.” His lip curled. “The way you do it is wrong. People complain.”

That much was true, but it wasn’t complaints about fish guts.

My dear husband was a child of the gods, having been granted a drop of Njord’s blood at his conception, which gave him powerful magic over the creatures of the sea. Except instead of using it to care for our people, he used his magic to deprive other fishermen of any catch even as he filled his own nets. Then he charged double what the fish were worth of the very people whose nets he kept empty.

Everyone knew it. But no one dared speak a word against him. He was Vragi the Savior, the man who’d delivered Selvegr from famine when the crops had failed ten years past, drawing in fish from the North Sea to fill bellies, ensuring no one went without.

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Why I love it

Surprise of the month: Vikings and magic are actually a perfect pairing and make for a fantastic story. Danielle L. Jensen has given us a transfixing Norse-inspired romantasy in A Fate Inked in Blood.

Freya is married to a violent, brutish fisherman—until she’s not. After being forced to live out her days performing the menial tasks of a Viking’s wife, Freya finds herself suddenly fighting for her life and freedom. Just when she rids herself of one awful power-hungry man, another steps in and forces her into yet another marriage…

The jarl of Halsar believes he is destined to rule as king, and needs a shield maiden to do so. Upon discovering Freya is a shield maiden blessed by the gods, the jarl forces her to marry him, and and tasks his handsome son Bjorn with protecting her from their enemies. With the weight of a kingdom on her shoulders, Freya must train to become a warrior and learn to wield her magic, all while being tested by the gods—and trying to ignore her powerful attraction to gruff Bjorn.

Pick up A Fate Inked in Blood and dive head-first into the icy fjords and electric raids between its pages. An epic story and a phenomenal read—Vikings have never been quite this fun before.

Member ratings (17,920)

400+ pages
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Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle
The Change
Part of Your World
Lessons in Chemistry
The Good Left Undone
Kaikeyi
True Biz
Pieces of Her
Booth
Peach Blossom Spring
A River Enchanted
Black Cake
Will
Still Life
The Keeper of Night
The Book of Magic
The Lincoln Highway
Apples Never Fall
In Every Mirror She's Black
Damnation Spring
One Last Stop
Half Sick of Shadows
The Girl with Stars in Her Eyes
What Comes After
In a Book Club Far Away
The Four Winds
Black Buck
The City We Became
The Prophets
The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
A Rogue of One's Own
Notes on a Silencing
Friends and Strangers
Evicted
The End of October
The Book of Longings
The Great Believers
Yes No Maybe So
Anna K
Not So Pure and Simple
Red, White & Royal Blue
Long Bright River
When the Stars Lead to You
Ninth House
The Water Dancer
The Fountains of Silence
The Goldfinch
Frankly in Love
Permanent Record
This Tender Land
The Reckless Oath We Made
The Boy and Girl Who Broke the World
The Gifted School
Free Food for Millionaires
Ask Again, Yes
All the Light We Cannot See
Sky Without Stars
Night Music
Small Fry
One Day in December
Nine Perfect Strangers
The Clockmaker's Daughter
The Great Alone
The Heart’s Invisible Furies
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A Million Junes
The Nightingale
Behold the Dreamers
A Gentleman in Moscow
The Secret History
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400+ pages
View all
The Thirteenth Child
Homeseeking
Most Wonderful
The Courting of Bristol Keats
Pictures of You
PS: I Hate You
The Road of Bones
Bloodguard
Intermezzo
The Dagger and the Flame
The Wild Huntress
The Crimson Crown
Here One Moment
Phantasma
The Pairing
All the Colors of the Dark
The God of the Woods
Same As It Ever Was
The Demon of Unrest
Five Broken Blades
Real Americans
The Reappearance of Rachel Price
Table for Two
The Familiar
A Short Walk Through a Wide World
Just for the Summer
The Wives
A Fate Inked in Blood
The Disappearance of Astrid Bricard
The Fox Wife
The Mayor of Maxwell Street
Ready or Not
Heartless Hunter
The Women
Family Family
Ruthless Vows
Gwen & Art Are Not in Love
The Frozen River
The Future
What We Kept to Ourselves
Wellness
The Fragile Threads of Power
You, Again
The Bookbinder
Happiness Falls
Shark Heart
Love, Theoretically
The Only One Left
The First Ladies
Ink Blood Sister Scribe
Warrior Girl Unearthed
The True Love Experiment
Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?
Yours Truly
Hello Beautiful
I Have Some Questions for You
Clytemnestra
The Last Russian Doll
Someone Else’s Shoes
The Shards
Hell Bent
Age of Vice
A Wilderness of Stars
Babel
The Circus Train
Before I Let Go
Bloodmarked
The Last Party
Foul Lady Fortune
Sign Here
Thistlefoot
As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow
The Attic Child
Bronze Drum
The It Girl
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle
The Change
Part of Your World
Lessons in Chemistry
The Good Left Undone
Kaikeyi
True Biz
Pieces of Her
Booth
Peach Blossom Spring
A River Enchanted
Black Cake
Will
Still Life
The Keeper of Night
The Book of Magic
The Lincoln Highway
Apples Never Fall
In Every Mirror She's Black
Damnation Spring
One Last Stop
Half Sick of Shadows
The Girl with Stars in Her Eyes
What Comes After
In a Book Club Far Away
The Four Winds
Black Buck
The City We Became
The Prophets
The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
A Rogue of One's Own
Notes on a Silencing
Friends and Strangers
Evicted
The End of October
The Book of Longings
The Great Believers
Yes No Maybe So
Anna K
Not So Pure and Simple
Red, White & Royal Blue
Long Bright River
When the Stars Lead to You
Ninth House
The Water Dancer
The Fountains of Silence
The Goldfinch
Frankly in Love
Permanent Record
This Tender Land
The Reckless Oath We Made
The Boy and Girl Who Broke the World
The Gifted School
Free Food for Millionaires
Ask Again, Yes
All the Light We Cannot See
Sky Without Stars
Night Music
Small Fry
One Day in December
Nine Perfect Strangers
The Clockmaker's Daughter
The Great Alone
The Heart’s Invisible Furies
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
A Million Junes
The Nightingale
Behold the Dreamers
A Gentleman in Moscow
The Secret History
Dead Wake
Salt to the Sea
& Sons
Palace of Treason