Fiction Reviews
Fallen Gods
(2025) Rachel Van Dyken, Bramble, £22, hrdbk, 399pp, ISBN 978-1-035-05074-1
This dark academia/romantasy novel opens with a dedication from the author to her family’s Norwegian roots, and in particular to her grandfather for introducing her to the Norse myths. I’ve no doubt this affection for the source material is heartfelt, and it’s of course a marvellous thing when love of a story is passed down through the generations.
But I struggled to see any of this on display in Fallen Gods, whose treatment of the tales of Odin et al could at best be described as confusing.
It’s the present day and Rey Stjerne is the daughter of Odin, who is slumming it as a psychopathic
mafia bosslegitimate businessman. All the gods of legend have been exiled to Earth after the giants broke the Bifrost rainbow bridge, running off with Thor’s hammer Mjolnir into the bargain. In reprisal, Odin has erased most of their memories, gods and giants alike. Now both sides live as humans among humans.But it is hard to hide completely – the Eriksen family of giants have also become
rival underworld kingpinswealthy oligarchs who run their own Nordic-themed university on their private estate on the West Coast of America, complete with ancient magical ruins and runes all around campus.Two years ago, Rey was betrothed to Aric Eriksen in a proposed dynastic alliance. But that fell through and Aric’s parents subsequently died in mysterious circumstances. Understandably, there’s now bad blood between the Stjernes and the Eriksens.
But Odin wants Mjolnir back and he has discovered the giants hid it on the site of their modern university before being hit by his mind-wipe all those years ago. He sends Rey to enrol as a student, charged with awakening Aric’s ice giant powers so that he remembers where the hammer is hidden, so she can then recover it for the gods.
Rey has no great loyalty to Odin, who she serves only out of fear of what he will do to her stepmother if she does not comply. So, it’s hardly surprising she doesn’t make the most reliable covert operative, especially as she discovers her attraction to Aric remains as strong as ever and is fully reciprocated. But how much of a double game is she willing to play?
At this point in the review, you may have entirely reasonable questions of the text – I certainly did. What are all these gods and giants doing on the West Coast instead of Scandinavia? Why do amnesiac giant mobsters have a sideline in running a university? How did their magical ruins get there across the Atlantic and then across the continent?
And is there not an easier way to get Mjolnir back than sending the daughter you despise off to college to make eyes at your rival’s grandson? Again?
Little of Fallen Gods makes sense except if you acknowledge that the main point of the book is to repeatedly bring Rey and Arik together in your classic enemies-to-young-lovers romantic journey. The plot and the first-week-of-college setting simply provide the pretext for this to occur.
Your appreciation of this central relationship (and thus the book itself) will depend on how you feel about unscrupulous Heathcliff types with not-so-hidden feelings of rage and desire. For some Arik will be a legitimate object of literary attraction and to those this book can to some degree be recommended in spite of its plot-holes.
The author has a long track record of writing contemporary romances, including those with a mafia theme, and you can see this approach transposed into a modern fantasy setting here. If you like this sort of thing, then of course Fallen Gods makes sense.
That said, even if this kind of romance is your bag, I don’t think it’s unrealistic to wish on your behalf that Fallen Gods took its world-building, plot and character work as seriously as it does its amours. Van Dyken could have had her golden apple (Idunn variety) here and eaten it too, and the book would only have been the better for it.
For those less enamoured of Rey and Arik – and I confess I am one – your reading pleasure is in any case better sought elsewhere.
Tim Atkinson
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