Earth’s Requiem is the first installment of the serial Earth Reclaimed. Being a serial, it did what all proper installments of a serial should – ended on a cliff-hanger.

I should probably tell you that there is explicit sex in Earth’s Requiem but no explicit violence. The sex was consensual and safe. Here in Norway teen-agers read this kind of stuff. Other places have other rules.

If you check out Ann Gimpel’s blog, you will see that she has been writing fiction since 2009. She has generally written urban romantic fantasy. Earth’s Requiem is my first meeting with Ann Gimpel and it was sent to me as a reviewer’s copy.

Earth’s Requiem is not urban romantic fantasy. Instead it could be called apocalyptic romantic fantasy. I’m calling it fantasy because we are dealing with the old gods of celt mythology but it might also be deemed science fiction because of the Lemurians who have entered the Earth through gates opened by – you guessed it – humans. We humans are stupid and curious little monkeys. If there is a lever to be pressed, a ritual to be performed or aliens to be contacted we will do our be to do the deed. I’m that dumb myself. When I was a kid I would put a knitting needle into the wall sockets just because my dad had warned me not to. I’ll still do really stupid stuff just because I wonder what would happen if …

Once I started looking for info on the gods in Earth’s Requiem, I became fascinated with Celtic mythology. The celtic gods we get to meet are:

• Fionn mac Cumhaill: God of wisdom, protection, and divination. A warrior-hunter and god of the wood-lands.
• Bran the blessed / Benedigeidfran: God of prophecy, the arts, leaders, war, the sun, music, writing.
• Arawn: God of the underground kingdom of the dead. Revenge, terror and war.
• Gwydion: Greatest of the enchanters, warrior-magician. Illusion, changes, magics, the sky, healing.
• Dewi: Dragon goddess

As this is a romance novel all four human-like gods are devastatingly good-looking. Fionn mac Cumhaill is the god we are particularly interested in. He is the paramour of our main protagonist, Aislinn Lenear, whose mother was Tara MacLochlainn. Tara MacLochlainn was thrown into a vortex by one of the new rulers of the Earth when her sanity was insufficient to please the Lemurians. Aislinn’s father had already been killed by one of the Dark gods. The Lemurians and Dark gods fight each other for dominance of the Earth and humans are being used as their tools.

While Aislinn has realised that all she is to the Lemurians is a tool, she has been so wrapped up in her grief that she has been unable to see past that. The compulsion that has been laid upon her and all humans under the thumbs of the Lemurians might have something to do with that inability as well. But after three years, Aislinn meets the above Fionn and he manages to rescue her from that compulsion. Together they spear-head the resistance that includes humans and celtic gods.

It wouldn’t be a romance novel without some pretty complicated inner dialogue about whether or not to love a person, how to love them and all of that other stuff. I always tend to zone out when romance comes along and that is a pity because Ann Gimpel writes well enough to deserve a romance reader that can appreciate romance. I enjoyed the action and the premise of the resistance group and the fascinating stuff this story led me to on the net.