The best books for when destiny calls, and love answers

I never miss an opportunity to recommend this book for its broad scope and human courage.

It’s such an immersive and very human story full of adventure, challenge, will, and passion. Auriane is brought to such exquisite life as a woman born to a destiny meant to free the people she loves.

This book lands on my list for a call to destiny answered by love because Auriane’s life is an example of how we can’t see ourselves, or how we often don’t know where to fit, whom to challenge, and where to connect—but we find our way by being relentlessly devoted to doing what feels right to us, guided by that internal flame until we unite with the force that gives us a purpose, place, meaning.

Often, if not always, that destiny is deeply anchored in love. 

For Auriane, that love is her tribe, and her community, family, friends, and lovers. 

Jacqueline Carey writes worlds that are so rich and juicy with literary cadence and poetry that reading her work is like reading music.

The story of Phèdre nó Delaunay’s call to destiny, which is answered by love, is such a sexy adventure, so deeply enmeshed in humanity and personal freedom that it’s literally impossible to put down once you start.

I put Phèdre’s story on this list because she answers the call of destiny with tenderness, supplication, and surrender, versus warrior heroics and overt violence. Her tool is self-mastery, and a willingness to be of service in all ways that are available to her—which in the end is the ultimate wielding of power and a collaboration with divinity that supports all those she holds most dear.

And there is epic romantic love, sex, adventure… always a good time to be had in a Carey novel.

This one might seem an odd pick at first. I thought so too when a friend gave me a copy. I was surprised there was an Anne McCaffery book I hadn’t read!

This book belongs on the list for its beautiful depiction of what love and community can do for a group of mismatched outcasts, refugees on a dangerous planet—a collection of peoples all very different from one another working together to survive.

Their destiny was to become a cohesive extended family despite all their differences, and to become empowered individuals at the same time. There’s a steamy romance, too. So that’s always yummy. It goes to show that when destiny calls, the love that answers can be with a voice of multitudes.

Again, not a book someone might expect to be on my list, which is why it really should be.

One of the most beautiful layers in this book is that destiny can come from within. It speaks to us. It feeds us with dreams, ignites our passion.

Love is answered by the deepest yearnings of self toward the manifestation of those passions. A little love of our dreams, and ourselves and the destiny they embody goes miles toward a more fulfilling and collaborative life with our world and those who share this experience with us.

I dare you to re-read The Alchemist with this tilt on the work. When Santiago sets out on his adventure to chase his dream—you won’t be able to see the story for anything other than a call from destiny answered by the very love of being alive.

This is an obvious pick, I know. Still, it’s on record as the greatest adventure, the highest bar of duty and courage—and ultimately love.

Homer’s epic detailing Odysseus’ journey home from the Trojan War is fraught with peril and obstacles that would have made a lesser human give up and call it a day. 

Destiny called him away, but it was love that brought him home from war. At each crossroad Odysseus was offered an alternative, he chose to return to his wife, his son, and his land. He could have been made immortal.

He was offered riches and greater glory, and all the dude wanted was to kiss his wife and sleep in his own bed at the end of the day. Is that so much to ask?

The reason The Odyssey is on my list is to reflect the scale of destiny, and the answering and equal call of the human spirit to prevail. If Odysseus didn’t have a family and a home he loved enough to return to—there wouldn’t have been a story.

He’d have been just a guy, wandering around, having some pretty rotten days. Love brought his story to life, and kept him alive long enough to unite with the people he cared about. 

Destiny called, love answered… and we’re still telling the story hundreds of years later.