Title: Taming Fate
(2.5)
Author: Amalia Dillin
Series: Fate of the Gods
Published by: World Weaver Press
Date published: June 24, 2014
Pages: 171
Genres: Adult Historical Fantasy
Steam Rating: Sweet
Main Characters: Eve & Ryam DeLeon
“it’s Dillin’s ability to create memorable characters like Eve and Ryam that will keep me reading her stories for novels to come.”
For the first time in her many lives, Eve would rather be anywhere but home.
In 15th Century France, Eve would have burned as a witch if it hadn’t been for the too-timely arrival of the Marquis DeLeon to save her skin. But Eve didn’t ask to be rescued, and their hasty marriage is off to anything but a smooth start. As tensions in the town grow and plague threatens, Ryam DeLeon knows if he and Eve cannot find common ground, their first Christmas may be their last.
Fate of the Gods Series
Amalia Dillin’s Fate of the Gods Series is epic. Though often considered a cliche reference to novels, epic is the only word I could come up with to do the series justice. It is larger than life in most instances, spanning thousands of years with tons of historical references mingled throughout. It was clear from the beginning that Dillin had done her historical homework, and even with my Master’s in English, I often felt challenged at many turns. That said, I’ve truly enjoyed the series.
The Fate of the Gods series revolves around the many lifetimes of Adam and Eve while Taming Fate focuses on one of Eve’s more challenging lives that later becomes a foundational element of the series. When Eve left the Garden of Eden with Reu, he was charged with her protection and the DeLeon descendents throughout time continue this legacy, becoming her family that she often returns to in future lives.
Taming Fate
Taming Fate begins when the Marquis, Ryam DeLeon gets word from Thor (yes, the Norse god of Thunder, a recurring character in the series), that Eve has been charged with Witchcraft and is facing a death sentence. This leads to Ryam’s rescue of Eve and a marriage in haste in order to calm the religious factions.Obviously Eve and Ryam do not marry for love, which begins their struggle from day one. And while Eve would generally be happy to return to her DeLeon family, Ryam quickly becomes challenging, and she finds herself frustrated and looking for an escape.
So here is my take on the situation. Eve is-well, Eve. She has seen and done it all, which can be intimidating to a strong-willed man like Ryam. Having lived many lifetimes, she is a strong, confident woman who is self-sufficient and not one to expect or depend on anybody for anything. Ryam, on the other hand, is very much a man’s man. A product of his environment, he lives in a time when there are certain expectations of men and woman, and their gender roles are clear and not to be altered. When Eve challenges everything Ryam knows about life and expects of a wife, he does not take it quietly and they find themselves fighting each other at every turn.
Taming Fate explores the challenges of a developing relationship between Ryam and Eve. From my perspective, the problem is not their differences, but rather their similar personalities. Both are stubborn with high expectations, and neither is willing to compromise. This challenges them both throughout the story, ultimately becoming a lesson of letting go of their individual needs in order to find common ground, while learning to love and respect each other along the way.
I love character-driven stories and Taming Fate did not disappoint. Eve is truly an impressive woman who, despite her already expansive lifetimes of experience, still manages to evolve. The ultimate female role model, Eve is a force to be reckoned with. I cheered for her happiness and in Taming Fate, for her relationship with Ryam. Her ability to sacrifice is what makes her a truly epic character, and it is Dillin’s ability to create memorable characters like Eve and Ryam that will keep me reading her stories in the future.
Amalia Dillin
Amalia Dillin began as a Biology major before taking Latin and falling in love with old heroes and older gods. After that, she couldn’t stop writing about them, with the occasional break for more contemporary subjects. Her short stories have been published by Daily Science Fiction and Birdville magazine, and she’s also the author of the FATE OF THE GODS series and HONOR AMONG ORCS, the first book in the Orc Saga. Amalia lives in upstate New York with her husband, and dreams of the day when she will own goats — to pull her chariot through the sky, of course.
Before
In the Garden, life had been simpler. And even after, when Adam had turned them out into the wide savannah, hoping they might starve, Eve had feared little. She had walked hand in hand with Reu, the second man made, the man she loved, and they had lived by their own rules and God’s law, protected by the lions she had tamed.
It hadn’t been until much later that she had been forced to hide herself. When her children and grandchildren, and the children and grandchildren of the others who had been Created at the dawn of time had begun to spread throughout the earth, and more children were born in villages where she had never been, and where those who remembered the Garden, who remembered their journey from it, no longer lived. When the people no longer believed her, when she told them who she was. Eve, born again, to protect them, to serve them as she could. Eve, God’s daughter, the woman who had freed them from Adam’s cruelty.
They began to look upon her as some strange, broken woman, and she learned quickly that it was better to keep the truths she knew to herself. If she wanted peace. If she wanted to live among them, freely. All the more so after Michael gave them Scripture, and the blame for the loss of paradise fell upon her shoulders for the sin of being the first to eat of God’s Fruit.
Even then, it was not so terrible. She was born among her own family often enough, and they always remembered. Reu’s sons always remembered, and the lions always knew her, acting as another proof to her words. Among her family, her lions, she was always able to live as Eve, and she looked forward to those lives when she was near enough to find them. A lifetime of peace and love and honesty gave her hope for the lifetimes in which she lived by lies more than truth. But the older the world became, and the more people who lived within it, the less often she was able to return. Until she began to fear that they too, might forget her, and she had no choice but to send the lions away, for their own safety.
More than anything, Eve had always loved coming home to her House of Lions.
At least until the Marquis had found her.
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The man who sat across the table was a stranger. Dark hair, dark eyes, his face so familiar, and yet so different. The Marquis DeLeon showed more affection to his dogs and his horses than he did to his wife. It wasn’t that he hadn’t tried, Eve reminded herself. That he didn’t still try. But from the moment she had not thrown herself into his arms, weeping with gratitude and relief, he had been at a loss as to what to do with her, how to move forward.
Oh, they’d married, of course. And even consummated their vows, not that the Church had not been known to ignore such evidence when it suited them. Which was why the Marquis wished to have children, as quickly as possible.
And he believed simply by saying so, by announcing this desire to her, for the security of their marriage and her own personal safety, she would welcome him unreservedly to her bed. And why shouldn’t she? Weren’t children the entire point of her existence? Shouldn’t she wish to carry on her line, expand her family? She pressed her lips together to keep them from curling at the memory of his words. His entire attitude.
Arrogant, pig-headed, insufferable man. From someone else, she might have expected it, but from a DeLeon—from her husband, when he knew her for what she was, knew she was more than just Anessa, daughter of some minor nobleman from Avignon—it was all the more frustrating.
Amalia is giving away an eBook of her new release, Taming Fate from the Fate of the Gods Series as well as some SWAG! Be sure to check out the entire series-review to be featured here soon!
Fate of the Gods Series by Amalia Dillin
Forged by Fate (Fate of the Gods, 1)
Tempting Fate (Fate of the Gods, 1.5)
Fate Forgotten (Fate of the Gods, 2)
Taming Fate (Fate of the Gods, 2.5)
Beyond Fate (Fate of the Gods, 3)—Coming September 2014
