As Fate Decrees - a new review!

The Sunday Herald is the local newspaper for my home, and I wanted to share this wonderful review with everyone, since it's "from home" and is also a great one!!

Story id: 976553
Category: Books
Rating: 9
Date: 2007-11-04

Publication Information:

Time-spanning fantasy will satisfy romantics

By ELIZABETH PATTERSON

It’s outlandish, over the top and beyond imagination, but hey, it’s a fantasy novel. Whaddya expect?

As Fate Decrees by Denyse Bridger is a rip-roaring yarn that keeps you reading right to the end.

Ares, the war god, purchases Aramantha, a beautiful slave from Greek times, and trains her to be a great fighter. She becomes Champion to the Gods of Olympus, which means she has to serve and vanquish all enemies until the gods grant her peace.

As you might expect, there’s little peace for Aramantha. Violence sickens her but this woman can slice and dice the crap out of entire armies. She is constantly running into people who are just too anxious to fight. To makes things worse, old enemies from the past have a nasty habit of being reincarnated thousands of years later, leading to a situation where even the immortals could die. This is no dull history lesson.

"I’ve always had an active interest in Greek mythology," says Bridger. "I liked the concept of a single individual who would be sent forth over and over, throughout time, to defend the very face of history and keep the truth of the gods a fact so they wouldn’t fade from memory."

I call As Fate Decrees a time-spanning epic, and while that is a simplification, it’s fairly accurate as a broad statement. There is a romance backbone to the story, the catalyst that moves it, but it’s not the central plot.

The book is divided into two sections, one set in Ancient Greece to tell you who the Champion is and how she’s come to be chosen for this destiny. The second section, while strongly tied to the past, is set in modern day Athens, at the turn of the millennium.

Elizabeth Patterson is a freelance writer living in Sydney.

As Fate Decrees By Denyse Bridger (Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing, 253 pages, $16.95)

Copyright © 2007 The Halifax Herald Limited