Fated for the Harvest God

When I came into this I was expecting a story about a God falling for a human and this somehow threatening his powers. It seemed like it would be romance with a bit of a twist. This isn’t really what happened though.

Tano, a long-forgotten god’s powers start to come back when Henry moves on to the rundown farm. His powers don’t just start to come back they continuously grow and not once in the entire story was there any doubt they’d be disappearing. Also, I find it hard to believe, when you consider Gods are immortal, that he’s never been with another human before. And when you add that to him knowing about how the union can give immortality and allow them to have children, it makes it even more strange that he is so shocked about these feelings he has. If he has all this information why then is he so shocked?

Henry, I sort of want to like him. The problem here is that his ex left him for not knowing how to slow down. Then, when Henry lists the entire reasons in his mind of how he has mapped out their entire life together, which doesn’t actually have many breaks I could find, he doesn’t realise that his idea of slowing down is already full and their new life hasn’t even started. It was frustrating to see Henry play out exactly the scenario the ex was accusing him of, in his mind and he still did not realise his ex had a good point. Also, he never embraces this truth throughout the entire book, that he doesn’t and didn’t slow down.

As much as it pains me to say this because I am not a fan of angst at all, other than this beginning slice of breakup, nothing really happens. A man builds a house and falls in love with a god. A god falls in love with a man and doesn’t know what to do because of first love and all which is still hard to believe. Can’t live that long without having at least one relationship. I’m still not sold on him not understanding this. The two progress into a relationship effortlessly which is fine but on the other hand, nothing else happened.

A little more about the relationship with the surrounding spirits would’ve been fun. More than one date where Tano talks about his centuries of life. More awkward yet funny moments where Henry helps him navigate the modern world. The problem wasn’t the lack of angst, it was the lack of anything really. Somehow, the fact Tano spent most of his time as a crow didn’t allow the two of them to grow as a couple beyond the journey in building the house. In human form, they spent even less time together as Tano tended to work when Henry wasn’t there to witness it. Also, all the tension of getting powers back and probably losing them which is the reason I got this book to begin with wasn’t there. Like I already said there was never any doubt his powers were in jeopardy of leaving.

It’s a sweet story that isn’t high on angst, romance, drama or much else really with a plot that just flows from beginning to end without any real diversions. To be fair, when Tano took human form and did not reveal his true nature immediately I knew the book, even though short, was just going to meander along for a while. Then when the chance came to admit it, even with a talking fox beside him he still let Henry walk away without mentioning it. A human talking to a fox is an easy step in, to saying one is a god.

I guess that’s it really. If you’re looking for a smooth ride that doesn’t have any distractions, is somewhat predictable and has a nice HEA then this is probably for you. For me, however, there wasn’t enough beyond building the house to solidify a budding romance. Attraction maybe, but once that was acted on even in the form of a date the story was pretty over at that point. It definitely needed more to make a lasting impression on me.