CR2: Book 16 With A Tangled Skein by Piers Anthony

How awesome finding this book was! And it only cost me 35 cents!

After reviewing "Bearing an Hourglass" from the Incarnations of Immortality, I knew I had to find more of this set, and this third book in the series proved to me that Hourglass wasn't a delicious fluke.

Niobe was a beautiful Irish lass arranged to be married to a "boy" 5 years younger than she. She is upset, but is convinced by her father it is the best for the family and relents. She and Cedric spend their nuptial night in his inherited cottage near a swamp, not getting it on.
Over the next few weeks, they tour the glades and forest around the swamp, and she is impressed by his love and knowledge of nature and the local magic. They befriend a tree nymph. Cedric finally wins Niobe's love when he sings to her. His voice carries a wonderful magic: when he sings and touches her, she hears full orchestras.
He leaves to attend college and when she visits him, she is almost raped by some hooligans. Cedric saves her and they consummate their marriage, finally. She gets pregnant.

One day, while weaving at her loom, she has a terrible vision. Then, hearing a gunshot, she races off to find that a deer hunter has killed Cedric. She decides to give her baby up for adoption (leaving it with Cedric's cousin) and go petition Death to bring Cedric back.

Death is somewhat willing to meet with Niobe, but unable to help her. He suggests Chronos (from Hourglass) can help her. Chronos explains that he could indeed go back and save Cedric but there is a bigger picture here that may be altered if he does. Rather, he takes Niobe to meet with Fate.

Fate is 3-women-in-1 and is responsible for weaving the great tapestry of life, with threads spun from the substance of the Void. Each thread represents a human life and the length of the thread determines how long a person will live. The pattern the threads make indicate who that person will interact with. Fate shimmers from Clotho (who is the youngest aspect of Fate and spins each thread) to Lachesis (a middle-aged aspect who measures the threads) to Atropos (the oldest, who cuts each thread) and can also turn into a spider and travel on threads within the tapestry. Once accepting a job as an incarnation of Fate, these women don't age until they step down from office,
After some investigating, Fate delivers the news that Niobe was the target, not Cedric, and that Satan had some master plan to have her killed because she was destined to thwart him in some way. Niobe is broken and feels she has nothing left to live for.

But then Fate has a plan. The current Clotho is ready to retire and Niobe, with no further ties, is perfect for the job. And Satan better watch his back...

From there, things move along rather quickly, as Niobe learns the duties of her job, meets the other Incarnations, and is tempted by Satan. From her unaging standpoint, she is able to watch over the lives of her child and extended family and starts to see where their lives diverge with the Incarnation of Evil and what he has in store. It seems her taking the office of Fate was in the cards all along. And with the help of the other two women (whom she shares one hive-mind and shapeshifting body), she sets out to stop him.

I'm trying really hard to not give too much away after she becomes Fate. This story adds a depth to characters I already read about in Hourglass and I can tell I'm going to have to find the other books in the series to flesh out the big picture.
With a Tangled Skein was a quick read, wonderfully thought-out and crazily inventive (there's a computer in Purgatory! demons storm a wedding! Mother Nature is kooky!). I want to start over and read it again.