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A review by icedpinecones
A Fate Inked in Blood by Danielle L. Jensen
2.0
Tldr: your favourite standard fantasy archetypes thrown into a loosely viking world to repeat the same plotline you've already read in the bridge kingdom
I've got to say first and foremost I'm not a viking girlie, so I wasn't super invested in the lore; but the book did nothing to aide that. You don't really get too entrenched in political intrigue, it's just "you're in this clan and you're fighting this clan" and that's about it. I'd say this book is much more focused on the characters over the world building which is an issue because,,, they're kinda basic?
The characters all fell under pretty standard archetypes, without any additional spice to them, so it made their arcs when playing out quite predictable. I found especially the plot twist at the end (as is often the case with duologies) easy to see coming from a mile off. I usually guess main twists, but there's a joy in how it's unravelled and the hints and perhaps some additional smaller twists I didn't see coming, unfortunately this story didn't add anything extra I wasn't already expecting and the twist was delivered quite passively right at the end in a very info-dump mannerism
I enjoyed the prose as usual, I breezed through this book, but it's very much the same as a lot of other books by Jensen and other romantasy authors but with a viking filter laid over it. I was really into this book at the start, especially with a particularly gory hallucination sequence of the FMC being split open from her ribs down and ripped in half, but the story loses itself in a focus on romance and witty banter to a point of where any action sequences felt like an afterthought and a statement of telling rather than showing.
I need to stop reading these romantasy books, or romantavikings in this case, as I'm just not enjoying them and finding them all indistinguishable from one and other in character archetypes, pacing, prose, plot points and any other prevalent aspect of making a book.
I've got to say first and foremost I'm not a viking girlie, so I wasn't super invested in the lore; but the book did nothing to aide that. You don't really get too entrenched in political intrigue, it's just "you're in this clan and you're fighting this clan" and that's about it. I'd say this book is much more focused on the characters over the world building which is an issue because,,, they're kinda basic?
The characters all fell under pretty standard archetypes, without any additional spice to them, so it made their arcs when playing out quite predictable. I found especially the plot twist at the end (as is often the case with duologies) easy to see coming from a mile off. I usually guess main twists, but there's a joy in how it's unravelled and the hints and perhaps some additional smaller twists I didn't see coming, unfortunately this story didn't add anything extra I wasn't already expecting and the twist was delivered quite passively right at the end in a very info-dump mannerism
I enjoyed the prose as usual, I breezed through this book, but it's very much the same as a lot of other books by Jensen and other romantasy authors but with a viking filter laid over it. I was really into this book at the start, especially with a particularly gory hallucination sequence of the FMC being split open from her ribs down and ripped in half, but the story loses itself in a focus on romance and witty banter to a point of where any action sequences felt like an afterthought and a statement of telling rather than showing.
I need to stop reading these romantasy books, or romantavikings in this case, as I'm just not enjoying them and finding them all indistinguishable from one and other in character archetypes, pacing, prose, plot points and any other prevalent aspect of making a book.