(no subject)
Turning Darkness Into Light, by Marie Brennan. This sequel to the Memoirs of Lady Trent series takes place perhaps 30 years later, with her granddaughter Audrey as protagonist. It's not easy being Lady Trent's granddaughter - everyone in the family is highly accomplished, and Audrey hopes to make her mark by translating certain ancient texts. I'm torn between explaining the interesting political situation in the book and staying quiet to avoid a major spoiler from the final book in the original series, but I can say that Audrey lives in what we might describe as a "late Edwardian" era fantasy version of England - they have old-style society balls, but they also have telephones. I can also say that the story relates to my own work in a cool way - what are the implications of origin myths in the modern world, especially where a tiny, highly vulnerable, and easily identifiable minority population is concerned? There is plenty of derring-do but not much travel, and the book is very much about scholarship, so it might not appeal to everyone - and readers should definitely have already read the original series. I liked Audrey, but I really liked her colleague who travels some distance to help with the translation, and I absolutely loved her "assistant" Cora, who is clearly both brilliant and autistic and thus very much in need of mentoring and friendship.