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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.

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