The God of Time wants to destroy Eternity. A mysterious immortal seeks vengeance. And a reclusive Olympian deity does what no god should ever do: she answers a prayer. As punishment, she is stripped of her powers and trapped in a mortal’s body. Now a Wyrd – a fated god – she is haunted by the memories and thoughts of her host and must hide her true identity in order to survive in Niflheim, the … identity in order to survive in Niflheim, the rival Norse Underworld.
There she discovers the afterlife is not quite what it used to be. Niflheim’s new ruler threatens the precarious balance of a world overrun with outcast deities and mortals alike.
To save her own sanity and find her way back to the stars, she must help the other Wyrd overcome their grievances to defeat this enemy, but those who would be her allies appear to have motives as hidden as her fragmented consciousness.
And yet it seems the greatest threat to her freedom comes from within, and the prize it seeks is her immortal soul…
more
The idea behind this book was so intriguing! Unlike anything I have ever read, this book grabs your attention and never let’s go! If you love gods and mythological creatures this book is definitely for you!
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
I am a fan of anything with a Norse or Greek mythology story line. This book weaves it all together beautifully. I enjoyed the writing style which is important to me. Now I do not do spoilers but I will say that I Loved this book!
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
Wyrd Gods is a story which includes Norse, Greek and Egyptian gods as characters and a few other deities thrown into the mix for good measure.
Psyche, the ‘goddess of the soul’, is being punished by Chronos the mighty god of Time by being made a Wyrd or ‘fated’ god, placed in the body of a dryad and sent to Aegea to try and figure out why this happened to her. We eventually find out that the crime the Wyrd committed was that she answered a prayer. This is inexcusable behaviour for a god as is later explained to her:
“Whenever gods use their power to answer a prayer, they change the natural balance in the Universe. And since the intervention can’t be undone by other gods, imagine the chaos that would ensue if every god used their talents to help those they favour with no regard for the consequences…You must use your power to help keep the Universe in order, not to grant wishes.”
The story is presented in the first person perspective and since the main character does not know who or where she is, neither do we for a while. We discover things about this world as she does, with a little help occasionally from the memories of Ileana, the dryad whose body she inhabits. Since she is no longer Ileana and does not want to admit her real identity she starts introducing herself as ‘Butterfly’ after a pendant she wore as a human and which she is still somehow wearing after her trip through the Chronodéndron, or time travel tree.
The writing style presents the story as a kind of dream sequence with a very surreal feel to it and the dreams she experiences have a real effect on her in her waking world – after dreaming of Fenrir the giant wolf, Loki’s offspring, she awakens with his scratches on her skin.
She has to get used to her new body having been a goddess living among the stars, and prior to that, a beautiful human. Along the way she encounters a multitude of interesting characters, Ideth the dryad, Chiron the centaur, Odin the Allfather also a Wyrd god trapped in the body of a dryad, nymphs, Aeden the Darkhan, a frost wraith who falls in love with her and Hades the god of the Underworld in disguise as a satyr. Loki, Hel and Fenrir the enormous wolf also make an appearance.
There are occasional interludes told from the point of view of different characters – some were familiar to me, Loki and his daughter, Hel, Fenrir, Odin, Chiron, Hades for example. Some such as the Dharkan were not. I feel that a little mythological background knowledge is helpful in order to fully enjoy this book. Luckily I had that and already understood why Loki was initially hanging chained with a serpent above his head, but for anyone coming in cold there might be some confusion at times. The fact that many of the characters are disguised in bodies other than their own is also a little confusing from time to time.
The ruthless and haughty gods and Titans are depicted with tongue in cheek humour:
“Chiron had turned apoplectic at being referred to as ‘the god of horses,’ but he was pale by the time Ideth stopped talking. He gave a small kick with one of his hind legs and tensed his jaw a few times before speaking.”
Ideth, another dryad, had travelled through time to find her friend Ileana but the dryad had already convinced herself she needed to die. Chronos the god of time had seized this opportunity and decided to use Ileana’s body for the vessel in which he would punish the Wyrd. On returning to Aegea with Ileana, Ideth eventually discovered that she had been gone for 20 years and her friends and family had almost given up hope of seeing her again.
An Interlude written from Ideth’s perspective gives us more backstory about Ileana, who we discover was the daughter of the Suzerain, now the sovereign of Aegea. Ileana is a pawn in Odin’s plan to get rid of the Suzerain, the sovereign of Aegea, and return things to how they had been before the merging of the worlds and the felling of the World Tree. The Merge between the Olympians’ Underworld and Niflheim, the Norse version of the Underworld has occurred, however, and the World Tree has been cut down, which stops anyone from being able to travel through time – now they are stuck in the place and time in which they find themselves. Aegea has become a brutal world where:
“Strays don’t survive without the herd”.
Who will gain control, the Wyrd, or the dryad whose body she inhabits. The dryad is not supposed to be present any more, having died, but somehow she is clinging on to her memories and her body and becoming stronger every day. Who will gain supremacy over the body they both inhabit? Read Wyrd Gods to find the answer!