Cybele's Secret by Juliet Marillier
Set six years after Wildwood Dancing, Cybele’s Secret focuses on Jena’s scholarly younger sister, Paula, as she journeys to Istanbul with their merchant father as he hopes to find and purchase Cybele’s Secret, an artifact connected to an ancient cult. There, they hire Paula a bodyguard, Stoyan, who worked for a friend who was searching for the artifact before he died. Paula also befriends a woman named Irene of Volos who runs a library for women of all backgrounds, and Duarte de Aguiar, a merchant and supposed pirate. As she searches for Cybele’s Secret, Paula also starts to have encounters with a woman who seems to be her sister, Tati, who followed her true love, Sorrow, into the Other Kingdom six years before.
I liked the treasure hunting aspects, and the setting (though I wish it’d been utilized more) and while I liked Paula, I have to wonder why Marillier’s heroines always have to be so good. I also wanted more of Tati’s story, though I guess that’s being saved for the next book.
Regarding the romance between Paula and Stoyan, I liked it, but it was too…easy. I’m not one for angst wallowing, but when the pairing demands “We can’t be together! Our love is forbidden! Woes!” I kind of expect it to be there. Instead, for their different societies and social statuses, I thought it was too easy for them. There was angst at the end, but I found it disconcerting how Stoyan was pretty much treated as an equal and able to set down rules and what Paula was allowed to do. He read more like a protective old family friend secretly in love with Paula than a newly acquired bodyguard from a different culture. I mean, no, no one likes a racist character or one who looks down on other cultures or “lower classes,” but you can portray the social mores without portraying the character negatively. Also, that’s what character development and growth are for. A heroine who learns to grow past attitudes and biases is more impressive to me than one who doesn’t have them in the first place.
Also, why did Irene have to be evil and power hungry? Why was the one furthering education and more realistically breaking down social and class barriers and creating an academic world for women have to be the villain? This is me not happy with a plot twist.
Still, enjoyable book. Fewer supernatural elements early on than other books by Marillier, and an interesting setting.