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Ten of Destiny #1
Divine Death
Only those who reject destiny shall incur Fate's wrath.
In the urban sprawl of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, ten strangers are being brought together. . . An old soul. A fiery spirit. A willful outcast. Two wandering brothers. A hopeful runaway. A lost orphan. A disillusioned journalist. A traveling minister. And a mysterious psychic. . . As this found family unites, it seems serendipity may finally heal their collective pain.
But behind these fated meetings lurks a sinister agenda.
Elusive and otherworldly beings dubbed the Fates have endowed the ten with supernatural abilities. Incredible at first, the ten soon realize there’s just one catch—the loss of their free will. As some lose their minds to these overwhelming new powers, the ten find themselves pitted against each other, forced into a deadly game with humanity’s future at stake.
What does fate permit us to do? Are we a product of choice or design? In this urban fantasy adventure, the ten must resist the will of destiny if they wish to carve their own paths. Armed only with camaraderie, they will discover if the strength of their choice is enough to prevent the looming, catastrophic future thrust upon them.
Divine Death is the first installment of a four-part new adult epic that combines mystical science fiction with contemporary fantasy in a diverse tale of romance, magic, and mystery. Perfect for fans of Six of Crows and The Cruel Prince, these compelling characters will steal your heart and leave you eager for more.
Begin the saga today.
In the urban sprawl of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, ten strangers are being brought together. . . An old soul. A fiery spirit. A willful outcast. Two wandering brothers. A hopeful runaway. A lost orphan. A disillusioned journalist. A traveling minister. And a mysterious psychic. . . As this found family unites, it seems serendipity may finally heal their collective pain.
But behind these fated meetings lurks a sinister agenda.
Elusive and otherworldly beings dubbed the Fates have endowed the ten with supernatural abilities. Incredible at first, the ten soon realize there’s just one catch—the loss of their free will. As some lose their minds to these overwhelming new powers, the ten find themselves pitted against each other, forced into a deadly game with humanity’s future at stake.
What does fate permit us to do? Are we a product of choice or design? In this urban fantasy adventure, the ten must resist the will of destiny if they wish to carve their own paths. Armed only with camaraderie, they will discover if the strength of their choice is enough to prevent the looming, catastrophic future thrust upon them.
Divine Death is the first installment of a four-part new adult epic that combines mystical science fiction with contemporary fantasy in a diverse tale of romance, magic, and mystery. Perfect for fans of Six of Crows and The Cruel Prince, these compelling characters will steal your heart and leave you eager for more.
Begin the saga today.
268 pages, Paperback
Published October 4, 2020
3 people are currently reading
11 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
July 17, 2019
Full disclosure: I don’t like numbers or any sort of quantified scoring when it comes to doing reviews, so the score I put here is merely a placeholder. I used the 5 Stars rating I do not want to be arbitrarily unfair or skew the author’s score in a negative way. Also, I try to avoid spoiling or going into detail of any specific plot points. I went into this book nearly completely blind, and I recommend that you do the same. And make no mistake, this is a recommendation.
Ten by Sin Ribbon coalesces slowly.
Its broad ensemble of characters, as made clear by the cover, take their time to come together, moving through their own lives and slowly intersecting–perhaps by coincidence, perhaps by unseen forces. So too do the more fantastical elements of the narrative, hidden under a veneer of a seemingly modern world. By all accounts, it’s our world, but it doesn’t take long for the fantasy aspects to start prickling through, it’s always lingering amidst the prose, made apparent by the first chapter. Both slow introductions are welcoming, just as the majority of the characters are unknowing of the more surreal experiences that they are about to encounter, we get the benefit of living it with them for the first time. The fantastical elements begin as dreams, conveying a lingering sense of unease that begins to crescendo to full on creepiness and then abject horror. Frankly, I wasn’t expecting horror to be utilized so effectively, but it exists in full force in sections of the novel. The climactic encounter with one of the antagonists in this book is considerably terrifying, not merely affecting the main characters, but having significant collateral effects on the world. Sin conveys the stakes of what is to come, an aspect that is further exacerbated by the fact that the threat is able to possess and turn a handful of the characters against one another. Some of our protagonists are faced with the idea that this will happen to them, the rest that they will eventually have to fight those who they consider friends–a concept that will certainly haunt the upcoming books.
Future books should be emphasized here. There are two elements that readers may want to know before embarking. First, Ten is a serialized novel. This first book largely focuses on how the main characters come together and fully understand their role in the plot to come. Those expecting a full conclusion may be disappointed as it ends on a quasi-cliff hanger, but I feel most will anticipate what is to come in subsequent books.
Second, Ten is written in third-person present tense, a format that doesn’t suit everybody’s tastes and can be awkward if done poorly. Luckily, this is not the case here. This may also be personal bias as I do love present tense and am more than happy to indulge in books that use it, but others may get different mileage from it. Overall, I quite enjoyed the prose.
What I feel is the strongest and easily most enjoyable element is the diversity of the characters at play. LGBTQ+ representation isn’t linked to a single token figure, nor is it the primary trait of said characters. It allows the interplay and relationships of the protagonists to develop authentically. The sense of solidarity and community that comes from the ten leads bonding, even if some among them eventually have to turn on their friends, is refreshing in the sense that Sin largely avoids interpersonal conflicts, quibbles, and drama, replacing it with genuine sincerity. Even if the friendships here are relatively novel, the fact that we get to see them develop from the beginning gives them the necessary grain of realism. The chapters are, for the most part, evenly proportioned between different perspectives, although three characters arrive later than others (including my favourite, a child with a notorious dualistic side–more of her in the next one, pretty please).
Perhaps it sounds cheesy, but at its essence I feel Ten speaks to our desire as humans for companionship, our ability to show compassion even in the face of meeting total strangers. Even as the first sparks of romance and pairings start to emerge between characters at the end of the novel, what blazes even stronger is the sense that a family has developed. At the beginning, such relationships were tenuous and nearly absent, yet by the conclusion there is a unified sense of determination, each protagonist bolstered by one another, made stronger by their bonding. And the best part is, Sin’s writing allows us to be right alongside them. I was more than happy to take the initial plunge into this journey, and I eagerly await reading more. All things considered: highly recommended.
Ten by Sin Ribbon coalesces slowly.
Its broad ensemble of characters, as made clear by the cover, take their time to come together, moving through their own lives and slowly intersecting–perhaps by coincidence, perhaps by unseen forces. So too do the more fantastical elements of the narrative, hidden under a veneer of a seemingly modern world. By all accounts, it’s our world, but it doesn’t take long for the fantasy aspects to start prickling through, it’s always lingering amidst the prose, made apparent by the first chapter. Both slow introductions are welcoming, just as the majority of the characters are unknowing of the more surreal experiences that they are about to encounter, we get the benefit of living it with them for the first time. The fantastical elements begin as dreams, conveying a lingering sense of unease that begins to crescendo to full on creepiness and then abject horror. Frankly, I wasn’t expecting horror to be utilized so effectively, but it exists in full force in sections of the novel. The climactic encounter with one of the antagonists in this book is considerably terrifying, not merely affecting the main characters, but having significant collateral effects on the world. Sin conveys the stakes of what is to come, an aspect that is further exacerbated by the fact that the threat is able to possess and turn a handful of the characters against one another. Some of our protagonists are faced with the idea that this will happen to them, the rest that they will eventually have to fight those who they consider friends–a concept that will certainly haunt the upcoming books.
Future books should be emphasized here. There are two elements that readers may want to know before embarking. First, Ten is a serialized novel. This first book largely focuses on how the main characters come together and fully understand their role in the plot to come. Those expecting a full conclusion may be disappointed as it ends on a quasi-cliff hanger, but I feel most will anticipate what is to come in subsequent books.
Second, Ten is written in third-person present tense, a format that doesn’t suit everybody’s tastes and can be awkward if done poorly. Luckily, this is not the case here. This may also be personal bias as I do love present tense and am more than happy to indulge in books that use it, but others may get different mileage from it. Overall, I quite enjoyed the prose.
What I feel is the strongest and easily most enjoyable element is the diversity of the characters at play. LGBTQ+ representation isn’t linked to a single token figure, nor is it the primary trait of said characters. It allows the interplay and relationships of the protagonists to develop authentically. The sense of solidarity and community that comes from the ten leads bonding, even if some among them eventually have to turn on their friends, is refreshing in the sense that Sin largely avoids interpersonal conflicts, quibbles, and drama, replacing it with genuine sincerity. Even if the friendships here are relatively novel, the fact that we get to see them develop from the beginning gives them the necessary grain of realism. The chapters are, for the most part, evenly proportioned between different perspectives, although three characters arrive later than others (including my favourite, a child with a notorious dualistic side–more of her in the next one, pretty please).
Perhaps it sounds cheesy, but at its essence I feel Ten speaks to our desire as humans for companionship, our ability to show compassion even in the face of meeting total strangers. Even as the first sparks of romance and pairings start to emerge between characters at the end of the novel, what blazes even stronger is the sense that a family has developed. At the beginning, such relationships were tenuous and nearly absent, yet by the conclusion there is a unified sense of determination, each protagonist bolstered by one another, made stronger by their bonding. And the best part is, Sin’s writing allows us to be right alongside them. I was more than happy to take the initial plunge into this journey, and I eagerly await reading more. All things considered: highly recommended.
July 30, 2019
It seems I have been waiting for this kind of book all my life, and here it is at last! Ten by Sin Ribbon is truly a captivating, compelling, and creative read, where you have ten diverse characters from all walks of life and identities figuring out where they stand in the society, where they stand with each other, where they stand against the forces of evil destroying humanity and their home planet. I bet anyone can relate to at least one character and their struggling in the book. I have!
Ten, albeit being a Fantasy novel, to me, rather reads like poetry than prose, weaving in gorgeous and haunting imageries of darkness and of gloom and of morbidity but also of light and of vibrancy and of laughter; Sin Ribbon experiments with and subverts language in imaginative, revolutionary ways and does it so expertly. Likewise, there are many relatable hard life lessons to learn in Ten like accepting one's self fully and unconditionally over trying to fit into someone else's mold regardless of how much blood and love you share or realizing there may be two sides to you and doing your utmost in choosing to side with the good or working even alongside almost complete strangers for the betterment of the planet as a whole, giving the book so much wisdom that is often lacking in other books of its genre.
For anyone who appreciates a good Dark Fantasy novel with nuance and layers and a poetic touch, I highly recommend Ten by Sin Ribbon! I'm already anxiously awaiting for part deux!
Ten, albeit being a Fantasy novel, to me, rather reads like poetry than prose, weaving in gorgeous and haunting imageries of darkness and of gloom and of morbidity but also of light and of vibrancy and of laughter; Sin Ribbon experiments with and subverts language in imaginative, revolutionary ways and does it so expertly. Likewise, there are many relatable hard life lessons to learn in Ten like accepting one's self fully and unconditionally over trying to fit into someone else's mold regardless of how much blood and love you share or realizing there may be two sides to you and doing your utmost in choosing to side with the good or working even alongside almost complete strangers for the betterment of the planet as a whole, giving the book so much wisdom that is often lacking in other books of its genre.
For anyone who appreciates a good Dark Fantasy novel with nuance and layers and a poetic touch, I highly recommend Ten by Sin Ribbon! I'm already anxiously awaiting for part deux!
April 25, 2019
An amazing book with so many lovable characters. I was afraid with so many characters some might get lost in the shuffle but every character is awesome. I would highly recommend this book to anyone. I'm a huge fan of the author Sin Ribbon and her podcast and I've been looking forward to her debut novel for a while now and it did not disappoint. I'm looking forward to part 2.
July 20, 2019
I literally could not put this book down! From the very first page until the end, it's full of unique and interesting characters, and gorgeous writing!
If you enjoy dark urban fantasy, check this out! You won't regret it!
If you enjoy dark urban fantasy, check this out! You won't regret it!
August 9, 2020
Ten, Part One beautifully introduces all the protagonists and their coming together, as well as showing us a glimpse of the perils they will ultimately face in the following parts. Initially I worried about the number of characters here, but Sin has crafted them together perfectly, no one gets left behind, and all are beautifully rich.
Sin uses words to create images as beautiful as she does with paint, and this is a perfectly painted first act. This book is an introduction to what will undoubtedly be an epic you will definitely fall in love with.
Sin uses words to create images as beautiful as she does with paint, and this is a perfectly painted first act. This book is an introduction to what will undoubtedly be an epic you will definitely fall in love with.
July 4, 2019
I received a Complimentary Copy of this book from Voracious Readers Only.
This book is detailed
and has Great characters!!
This book deals with realistic issues
in a realistic way.
Good book!!
This book is detailed
and has Great characters!!
This book deals with realistic issues
in a realistic way.
Good book!!
March 23, 2019
Compelling and reviting story...
I found this sci-fi fantasy story to be captivating. It is well written with emotion and drama, terrifying moments, and yet tender human relationships. It is a quick read and worth the price. I am looking forward to part 2!
I found this sci-fi fantasy story to be captivating. It is well written with emotion and drama, terrifying moments, and yet tender human relationships. It is a quick read and worth the price. I am looking forward to part 2!
March 29, 2019
A compelling beginning
The main draw of this story is easily the characters. Each character is distinct, and even though there are nine main characters, they all (mostly) manage to stand out in their own way. Even though most of this story is setup, it remains compelling throughout. I'll be eagerly awaiting part 2.
The main draw of this story is easily the characters. Each character is distinct, and even though there are nine main characters, they all (mostly) manage to stand out in their own way. Even though most of this story is setup, it remains compelling throughout. I'll be eagerly awaiting part 2.
January 28, 2020
I purchased this book from Amazon to read. All opinions are my own. 🌟🌟🌟🌟 Ten Part 1 by Sin Ribbon. Ten strangers, all different religions, race, and cultures are thrown together from all corners of the world into downtown Pittsburgh. All ten of them are given some sort of supernatural ability after each of them has suffered a short life of traumatic events. These new powers hole the key to saving or devastating the world the way they know it. The ten must resist the will of destiny and carve their own path to ensure the future for everyone. It's a true battle for free will. Review also posted on Instagram @borenbooks, Library Thing, Twitter @jason_stacie, Goodreads/StacieBoren, Facebook, Amazon and my blog at readsbystacie.com
April 18, 2019
Ten people with unusual powers find themselves drawn together by forces they don’t understand - forces that threaten them and the world at large. They must figure out how to work together, and quickly, to prevent disaster.
With ten main characters, TEN: PART ONE could easily be unwieldy and confusing. But the plot races forward and each character is unique in a way that never gets out of hand. I found myself genuinely excited each time a new character’s name appeared at the start of a chapter. Who are we meeting? How do they fit into the puzzle?
The writing style is highly descriptive and in the present tense, which often reads like the scene descriptions in a screenplay, and this story would make a killer SENSE 8 or UMBRELLA ACADEMY style TV adaptation.
I really liked the idea that the source of their powers is also what threatens to take them down. It so perfectly mirrors their statuses as societal outcasts - LGBTQ people, people of color, trauma victims are all represented here, and they all provide each other support and the simple act of truly seeing each other.
With ten main characters, TEN: PART ONE could easily be unwieldy and confusing. But the plot races forward and each character is unique in a way that never gets out of hand. I found myself genuinely excited each time a new character’s name appeared at the start of a chapter. Who are we meeting? How do they fit into the puzzle?
The writing style is highly descriptive and in the present tense, which often reads like the scene descriptions in a screenplay, and this story would make a killer SENSE 8 or UMBRELLA ACADEMY style TV adaptation.
I really liked the idea that the source of their powers is also what threatens to take them down. It so perfectly mirrors their statuses as societal outcasts - LGBTQ people, people of color, trauma victims are all represented here, and they all provide each other support and the simple act of truly seeing each other.
March 9, 2021
Awesome book with a little bit of possession thrown in. Forces greater than humans take over some people that band together to try and save humans.
April 3, 2019
A fun YA novel reminiscent of Sense8, with a diverse cast. Ten people with supernatural powers are destined to be the conduit for an epic ancient battle. Can they band together to defeat the darkness instead? The heart of this book lies in the ten well-crafted main characters. My favorite was the bisexual polyamorous Riya, kicked out of her traditional Indian home but with a blazing spirit. The characters are swiftly introduced and not overwhelming, and the book is a quick page-turner. Looking forward to seeing more from author and incredible artist Sin Ribbon.
October 22, 2020
Divine Death by Sin Ribbon is an interesting YA fantasy novel. The first few pages were bombed with enough details that I wasn't sure if I wanted to keep reading. And then, after that, the story really began. It was captivating. Weird, quirky, but intriguing at the same time. I found the characters drove the story pages into a frenzy; making it easier to read. Young people suddenly with powers they don't understand or don't want but get anyway. So unusual...but entertaining.
The plot contained many emotions. From surprise to anger, to sadness and hope. Each person, character, has his or her own story within this story. I felt like I received a good dose of sociology courses just by following each character's journey. Each one had a different struggle to deal with and it was heartbreaking. But together they can beat what they have been put against. The war has just started...
Overall, this was a unique book. I liked the dialogue and the characters. Sin Ribbon is one creative writer with a wild imagination. But it worked.
I received this copy from the publisher. This is my voluntary review.
The plot contained many emotions. From surprise to anger, to sadness and hope. Each person, character, has his or her own story within this story. I felt like I received a good dose of sociology courses just by following each character's journey. Each one had a different struggle to deal with and it was heartbreaking. But together they can beat what they have been put against. The war has just started...
Overall, this was a unique book. I liked the dialogue and the characters. Sin Ribbon is one creative writer with a wild imagination. But it worked.
I received this copy from the publisher. This is my voluntary review.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews