NorsePlay.

Sure, the Norse Lore has its share of wooing and star-crossed tribal consummations, so one might guess in pushing that into a contemporary enemies-to-lovers themed romantasy isn't so much of a far cry to explore, maybe. Romance author Rachel Van Dyken's Fallen Gods is about to hit tomorrow on December 2nd with a Deluxe Limited Edition featuring open fore-edge painting. This is the compelling bit of the super dramatic teaser sample: He raised me to obey. To bleed. To be his blade when the time came. Now he’s sending me to Endir University, a place filled with ancient bloodlines and deadly secrets, to steal back Mjolnir , the hammer of legend. If I fail, everyone I love dies. While I'm not hot on romantasy (but hey, try and win me with your spice ), that the exploration of the Norse Lore brought forward into a contemporary setting (i.e. Netflix' Ragnarok , American Gods , The Almighty Johnsons , Friedman's awesome Vidar Trilogy ) is something that always provokes N...

While the cover of this looks pretty mid, the provenance of this NorsePlay'd contemporary fantasy is not. Author Sally Magnusson is not only an accomplished BBC broadcasting personality for 30 years, and a multi-titled author, she grew up under her father Magnus Magnusson (1929-2007 CE), possibly the most famous Icelander outside of Iceland (well, pre- Björk ), who not only also was a longtime BBC broadcasting personality, but a prominent popular translator of many  Icelandic Sagas  and wrote a travel book about visiting the sagasteads which has been in NorsePlay's TBR pile for a long time now. From the blurb material about The Shapeshifter’s Daughter , both Hel and a terminal cancer patient converge and help each other realize who they really are. The book was just released last week on November 5th 2025 CE in Orkney, and doesn't seem available in North America yet. Have any of you Orcadian NorsePlayers already read this? If so, let us know what you think in the comments b...