A quiet neighborhood, a beloved rescue dog, and a car built for everyday errands might seem far removed from the life of a goddess. In Steve Coyle’s American Goddess, they are part of Valerie Wells’s carefully chosen world. When danger reaches a place she cares about, she must decide whether to keep moving or risk everything to protect it.
A Goddess Finds Shelter in Modern Life
Valerie Wells has a history that stretches far beyond her name. Centuries ago, she was Issanja, a pagan goddess worshipped across Scandinavia and Germania. People once honored her in temples and carried her name through their daily lives. That world has faded. Fifteen hundred years later, the traces of her former life are difficult to find.
Her present-day existence is deliberately modest. Valerie lives in an American suburb, drives a Prius, and shares her home with Kirby, a rescue dog she adores. To her neighbors, she appears to be an ordinary woman. Keeping that impression intact allows her to enjoy routines and a measure of peace without explaining her supernatural past.
The contrast between Issanja’s former status and Valerie’s domestic life gives the story an appealing point of entry. She has seen communities and belief systems change over centuries, but her current concerns are recognizable: home, companionship, and the safety of people nearby. Her ordinary surroundings offer a kind of refuge, though they cannot erase the memories she carries.
Valerie has also learned to treat danger as a signal to leave. War, revolution, and religious persecution have repeatedly reshaped the places around her. Rather than take sides, she has survived by moving on. That response has protected her, but it has also kept her from putting down lasting roots.
Campo Verde Challenges Her Instinct to Leave
A compassionate choice draws Valerie into trouble at Campo Verde, where competing paranormal factions are already locked in a war. Their conflict threatens the community and the people Valerie has come to care about. What begins as concern soon presents her with a difficult question: can she walk away again when those around her need help?
Her attachment to one Campo Verde resident makes the decision more personal. She has grown close to someone caught in the struggle, and there may be a crush involved. The connection complicates Valerie’s familiar escape plan. Leaving would mean turning away from a person whose presence has become important to her.
Valerie’s nature brings another complication. Issanja is a goddess of healing, and centuries of avoiding battles have left Valerie without combat training. She understands how to care for others, yet the escalating danger calls for skills she has never had to develop. Her compassion gives her a reason to act, but it does not make the prospect of fighting less frightening.
A mystic ritual offers a chance to gain the strength she needs. It requires Valerie to die. If enough mortals still believe in Issanja, she can return to life with enhanced power and combat abilities. The outcome rests on faith that may have survived even as the temples disappeared and her worshippers became harder to find.
The ritual transforms an external war into a deeply personal test. Valerie has spent centuries living with the belief that survival means leaving before a conflict can claim her. Now she must risk her life on the possibility that others still remember her, while trusting that the people she wants to protect are worth the danger.
About the Author
Steve Coyle is the author of American Goddess, an urban fiction and fantasy novel that follows an ancient healing goddess in contemporary America. The story places Valerie’s long history alongside the recognizable details of suburban life, then brings her into a supernatural conflict that tests her loyalties. American Goddess is available in Kindle and paperback editions on Amazon.
Choosing a Place to Call Her Own
Valerie’s greatest change may not be the power she could gain through the ritual. It may be her decision to stop treating every attachment as a reason to flee. Campo Verde gives her something she has rarely allowed herself: a place and people worth defending. American Goddess invites readers to follow her as she confronts the cost of staying and discovers what courage means after a lifetime spent surviving.
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