Divine by Mistake | by: P.C. Cast

Being a fan of the House of Night book series for young adults (and pretty book covers), I was very curious about this earlier adult trilogy from P.C. Cast.

Shannon Parker is an Oklahoma English teacher. She lives in the world as we know it; the only world she ever knew. But while on summer break, is sucked into a new world by an antique vase. Within this strange dimension, she is known as Rhiannon: Goddess Incarnate of Epona. In fact, she has stepped right into Rhiannon's role, which she has no choice but to play.

Immediately, she's treated like a (very rude and feared) queen and has to marry a centaur. Despite she's not the happiest about the situation, Shannon tries to be the kind, compassionate Goddess Incarnate that Rhiannon could never be.

Soon enough, she will see that dark creatures are lurking amongst this new world, and she knows that she must do her part to stop the sinister beings for the sake of peace as well as the people Partholon.

P.C. Cast is a really cool writer. I already knew that, and I've already established this here, but I may as well say it again. Though it's obvious that it's an earlier creation, it's still extremely well written and has her signature humor. It held my attention, and oftentimes fascinated me with the plotline and mythic creatures. As usual, each character had defined idiosyncrasies that were unique from other characters of the book (although Shannon sometimes reminded me of Zoey from the House of Night, but that was only because of slight smiliarities, or maybe just the way of the narration). With that being said, this book was not bland at all.

As I mentioned, I found it quite interesting to read about the creatures of this novel. Other than an appearance or two in a a few fantasy books I've read, I've never actually read a story that included many centaurs. P.C. Cast sort of makes me wish they'd appear more, since she makes them so beautiful and strong. I'm happy she included them.

The Fomorians, on the other hand, were quite scary. I know I talk about this book like it's so great (which it is) but there are other things I need to take account for, and these Fomorians have a little bit of something to do with it. Are they creative? Yes. After all, these beings only exist in this particular trilogy. Have I ever read anything so morbid? No. Sometimes their morbidity was too much for me, and I'd prefer to look away. It's not that their freaky description of appearance scared me away, it was the whole rape issue. I really can't stand reading about events of rape, or seeing it in movies. I don't care how good the movie/book is, if I know that there's rape in there, I avoid it. It disgusts me beyond words. I'm aware that it disgusts everyone, but the idea bothers me so much... you get the idea. So creepy monsters with no sense of goodness + rape was just way too much for me.

Divine by Mistake was just about exactly how P.C. Cast described it in her little note before the story began. It held my attention throughout the entire thing and turned out to be quite enjoyable, since there were no moments where nothing was happening. Even though P.C. left us with only a small cliffhanger, I plan reading the rest of the trilogy within the year.

This romantic fantasy is an entertaining and adventurous page turner that just gets better and better.


4/5 Stars

(Possibly a 3.5/5)