- Henrietta Branford
I think we can all agree that life can be tough. I know there have been many instances in my life where I have felt like dramatically falling to my knees, clenching my fists and howling "Nooooooo!" However, overall I live a comfortable, happy life and one of the most difficult moments in my day can be when I realise the peanut butter has been left in the fridge making it solid and unspreadable for my toast. The agony of it all!
It is helpful to get some reality on how good I have it and this book The Fated Sky served well as a cuff on the ear.
Ran is a teenage girl living with her mother and grandmother on an outlying Viking homestead. Her brothers and father were Viking warriors/slavers/traders who died far from home. Recently an old flame of Ran's mother has turned up and he and her mother start to make life difficult for Ran. This old flame has a crazy viking name starting with a V, I haven't seen it in print since I listened to the audio book and I have no idea how you would spell the name so we shall call him Vile V. Every year those living on the outlying homesteads gather for a time of feasting at the central grand house and Ran, her mother and Vile V set off on the difficult three day journey. The wilds of Norway are still very wild and there is the risk of being attacked by wolves or dying from exposure and cold. A day out from the grand house they are attacked by a pack of wolves and Ran's mother is critically wounded. Vile V wild with grief lashes Ran with his fury as they rush the last couple of miles. Ran hopes for sanctuary and peace at the grand house but she swiftly comes to the realisation that there can be danger anywhere and she has no cards to play.
Ran is living in a time where young women are possessions not people and whoever owns you has the right to do with you as they will. In the book, one woman casually tells another to avoid travelling with a certain man because he will attack and sell her. Everyone knows this but no one will make any effort to condemn or stop him, it's just the way things are. This is a time when superstition, and religious fear rule and people are chosen at random to be brutally sacrificed to appease the anger of the gods. It's best to make the most of what you have when you have it because quite likely it will be stolen, destroyed, attacked, burnt, killed or die. The moments of mercilessness in this book really shocked me and it was hard to listen to how some characters reacted to their onerous lives with vicious and evil behaviour. Ran's experience was not sugar coated it showed her tough life and I think this contributed towards a number of negative reviews this book has recieved. This book was raw and harsh but it managed to not revel in the ugliness of the situations.
The thing that stopped this book from being four hours of wallowing despair were the tiny rainbows of hope throughout the story. Ran found beauty in the the rugged landscape of Norway and Iceland and I liked her descriptions of what she saw. Also, even in the midst of the conflict in this novel, some of the characters showed that it is possible to make your own happiness.
My rating: 3.5 stars
