Giggle-book ahoy!
The Shadow Queen, Anne Bishop (birthday gift from ddrpolaris)
So, after reading Butler, Shakespeare, and Oates all in a row, I decided it was time for something a little more frivolous. The Winter's Tale and Beasts weren't intellectually taxing, but they were intellectually rigorous. Since I'm also working on my thesis and planning Othello, I need a little fluff in my reading.
Captain has decided to make this review slightly more challenging by only allowing me the use of one hand. It's okay though, cause he's frikkin adorable when he's sleeping, and if he is sleeping, then he's not trying to chew on my d20 necklace, a lovely birthday gift from k1ttykat and kestrel404. But I digress...
The Shadow Queen is the next book in the Black Jewels series, after Tangled Webs, and returns to the land of Dana Nehele in Tereille. This place should sound familiar to folks who've read The Invisible Ring--it's the Territory of the Gray Lady, and the male lead is Theran, Lia and Jared's many times great-grandson (Dana Nehelians aren't among the long-lived races like the Hayllians and Eyerians). Several generations after Lia and Jared's death, Dana Nehele fell to Dorothea, and, like the rest of the Realm, has been "raped [of] everything [it is] until there's nothing clean left to offer." (Thanks to mesmerising for the quote--I did a google search for it, and my first hit was her lovely Daemon Sadi website. Go Team Fangirl!) But even after Jaenelle's Witchstorm that destroyed the twisted Blood (two years ago in book time), Dana Nehele's been going through some tough times. After the Witchstorm, the landens (the non-Blood residents) rose up, tired of centuries of abuse, and began butchering the Blood that was left. At the book's start, Dana Nehele has lost half of the remaining Blood, the land is dying, and there may soon be no Territory left. And so, Theran, the last of the Grayhaven line, comes to the realization that any sane Warlord Prince would come to:
Queens aren't just a rank in the world of the Black Jewels--girls are born Queens; it's a special innate trait. Queens can be born into any Blood family, and can be any Jewel. They are the focal point of any Blood society, the Blood's moral center (well, she's supposed to be...) and the heart of the land. Part of the reason Dorothea's scheme worked so well was because Warlord Princes need a Queen to bond with. So she'd go in, murder all the Queens as strong or stronger than she was, then take all the lighter Jeweled Queens away, train them up to be like her, and then send them back. Faced with the choice between her twisted pets or no queens at all, many of the Warlord Princes would bond with them, and get all screwed up. Dorothea's pet Queens would do the same to the following generations, causing a similar pattern in the next generation of Warlord Princes. They'd grow (more) vicious and violent, causing the witches to try to break or enslave them, causing the males to try to break younger witches before they could grow up...and society spirals ever-downward in a cycle of abuse, vengeance, and death. Dorthea was nothing if not diabolically evil--she poisoned an entire Realm, setting herself up as both the font of all evil and yet the only wellspring of relative safety. But enough of the history lesson. Go read the books if you want more info--they're so worth it.
Anywho, there are a few Queens in Dana Nehele who survived the purge, but they're all too old, too young, or shaping up to be no better than the Queens who died during the Witchstorm--though, to be fair, these are all adolescent girls who suddenly find themselves outranking the rest of Blood society. I'm sure most of them are correctable. They just need a firm hand and a bit of guidance; unfortunately, all the males are too twitchy and scarred from the past to provide that firm hand. They're still stuck in that "Strike First" mindset, and will kill the girls rather than take a chance that they'll become the Queens they just got rid of. Seriously, Dana Nehele is on the brink of utter collapse. Theran recognizes this, and knows they need a Queen, one who can potentially heal the Territory, instead of tearing it apart. HIs family has a tradition that if Dana Nehele is in terrible danger, and there is nothing that the Greyhaven family can do to fix it, one of their line can go and ask Daemon Sadi for a favor. Once. Theran decides that now is that time, and travels to the Keep to see if that favor can be cashed in for a spare Kaeleer Queen.
Cause, y'know, Kaeleer's just got them hanging around in droves.
I don't like Theran. Of course, you're not supposed to, but whatever. He's hard-headed, arrogant, and stupid. Most of the males in this series are the first two; it's the last one that drives me nuts. He goes to the Keep, pisses off Papa Saetan, wanders around Halaway, insults Sylvia (he doesn't like her haircut and the fact that she's wearing pants), and dismisses Cassie, the Queen that Jaenelle handpicks to be the Queen of Dana Nehele, out of hand. He also thinks that Jaenelle's just some Queen too weak to have her own court, so clearly, he's not the brightest guy on the planet. His main problem is that he doesn't look past the surface of things, so when he sees Cassie, he sees only that she's unattractive and wears a Lighter Jewel (she wears a Rose Jewel). In his defense, he was looking for a Queen who could dazzle and inspire what's left of the Blood in Dana Nehele; a Darker Jeweled witch who could go in and fix stuff by force if necessary. Personally, I think he'd be glad to get a Lighter witch (if she starts showing signs of being no better than the others, he and the others could take her down no problem), but then again, I think logically.
I think my main problem with this book is that Bishop doesn't explain why he takes such an instant dislike of Cassie until nearly the end. All we know is that he judges her and finds her wanting almost instantly, with no real clear reason why or on what merits. All we get is that he finds her incredibly unattractive, which just makes him seem hideously shallow. I think she does it so that we dislike Theran that much more, but, trust me, she gives us plenty of reasons to hate on him beyond that. Giving us his motivations early on wouldn't make us forget that he specializes in ass-haberdashery, but it would complicate his character a bit more, which is always good. He's got a bunch of redeeming qualities, so he's not an outright villain or anything; he's just a total anti-hero whose anti nearly outweighs his hero.
Speaking of outright villains, we get to the part of the book that is, above and beyond, my favorite. There aren't any real villains in this book. There's one chick who is a "bad guy," but she gets maybe 10 pages of face-time, some of which take place after her death (btw, you just shouldn't fuck with a SaDiablo, okay? I'm not sure why some people haven't learned that lesson yet. Normally I'd say, "because everyone who fucks with a SaDiablo ends up dead," but they usually die in such a horrific fashion that WORD SPREADS. Their deaths are not only punishment but A WARNING TO OTHERS.)
The reason I love the lack of villains is because the parts of this series I love most is not the titanic struggle of good versus evil. Tangled Webs was great, but I loved this book better, because Tangled Webs was mostly about beating the bad guy. It's also why I like Heir to the Shadows more than Queen of the Darkness. I like the homey, family scenes where we see them interact as friends, family, lovers, etc. I giggle and beat shogunhb in the arm every time the three most powerful people in the history of the Blood are bullied by their servants (another trope I love: the bullying servant who's been with the family so long that he IS family). Beale and Mrs. Beale are amongst my favorite characters. These lines had me almost in tears (they will be much more amusing if you've read the books and know the characters):
"Mother Night, he was going to have to tell the butler not to arrange for an intimate dinner. Under the intimidating exterior, Beale was a romantic and wouldn't hesitate to exile Theran to a guest room and a dinner provided on a tray so that Lady Angelline could have a private dinner..."
"Using Craft, the footman sailed a hat across the great hall. Nighthawk* caught the brim of the hate with his teeth, bobbed his head, then turned and walked out the front door, which closed behind him.
Daemon stared at the door. Mother Night, Jaenelle was going to be so pissed when Nighthawk planted his feet and refused to move until she put on the hat.
'So,' he said. 'Which one of you told the horse about the hat?'
When neither Beale nor Holt answered, he nodded. 'Three out of three of us, then.'"
*a Kindred horse, which means he's intelligent, wears Jewels, and has a rank--he's a Gray-Jeweled Warlord Prince, which means he outranks Theran, a thought that amuses me endlessly.
Comment from his valet to Daemon Sadi, Black-Jeweled Warlord Prince, natural Black Widow, son of the High Lord of Hell, and a man who spent 1700 years destroying courts while he was enslaved: "Prince, you passed cranky halfway through breakfast--which is when Beale suggested I pack a bag for you so that you could leave the moment you finally decided to go to the Keep."
The family scenes are so complex, it's impossible not to love them. The secondary plot involves Daemon and Jaenelle (always a good idea). Daemon is knocked emotionally off-kilter when he meets with Theran, because Theran's resemblance to Jared brings back all sorts of memories about his time in Tereille before Jaenelle came. Later, Jaenelle accidentally triggers the emergence of the Sadist, and that scares the hell out of Daemon. Fragile, he goes to Saetan, who comforts him and loves him and is basically an awesome father...and, minutes after Daemon's sent to rest, Saetan goes to Jaenelle's room to find out if he's going to have to execute his son. Just...damn
And, later, when Saetan takes a quick jaunt into the Twisted Kingdom, it's up to Lucivar and Daemon to get him out.
This family dynamic is what I love: Lucivar, an Ebon-Gray Warlord Prince, getting bullied by his wife, a gentle Rose hearthwitch. Jaenelle, whose full power destroyed two-thirds of the Blood in all three Realms, is grumpily resigned to wearing her hat. The entire family is terrorized by Daemonar, Lucivar's seven(?) year old son. It's great. Sure, outside the walls of their homes, their names and exploits are whispered about in fearful tones, but in their house, Saetan knows better than to sass Mrs. Beale, especially when he's been foolish enough to step foot into her kitchen--never mind that, technically, the SaDiablos own the house.
I also liked that there was a little more interaction with the landens. She seems to be putting them in more and more. I approve of that. There's also Vae, a kindred Sceltie who's a bossy little bitch and an absolute gem--especially since she has very strong opinions about males, especially stupid human males (she's allowed to nip them, because they're in 'training'). I wish we could see a bit more of the coven and the boyos, but there was already so much going on in the book, that adding them in could have just been too much. In future books, though, I'd like to see more of them. Maybe Jaenelle and Daemon could visit the Dea al Mon? Or Tigrelan?
The Shadow Queen was like an old sweater: comfy and beloved. Bishop still nails the characters' voices, knows exactly what to write to make me giggle like a nutcase, and can tug my heartstrings like no ones business. She juggles POV well--she uses 3rd person limited, but from multiple characters' viewpoints. However, each she never switches POV mid-scene, and each character's voice is so clear that you know immediately when she's made the jump and into whose head we've jumped to, even if she doesn't say so immediately. Even the new characters individualized, so you really get to know them, even though I doubt we'll ever see them again. It might be a bit confusing for folks who've never read The Invisible Ring; she references it a lot. It's not necessary to have read it to understand The Shadow Queen, but you are going to miss some of the subtleties.
5 stars
I also give it five bruises, which is likely the number that I gave to shogunhb and ddrpolaris while reading it. I flail a lot when I'm excited.
So, after reading Butler, Shakespeare, and Oates all in a row, I decided it was time for something a little more frivolous. The Winter's Tale and Beasts weren't intellectually taxing, but they were intellectually rigorous. Since I'm also working on my thesis and planning Othello, I need a little fluff in my reading.
Captain has decided to make this review slightly more challenging by only allowing me the use of one hand. It's okay though, cause he's frikkin adorable when he's sleeping, and if he is sleeping, then he's not trying to chew on my d20 necklace, a lovely birthday gift from k1ttykat and kestrel404. But I digress...
The Shadow Queen is the next book in the Black Jewels series, after Tangled Webs, and returns to the land of Dana Nehele in Tereille. This place should sound familiar to folks who've read The Invisible Ring--it's the Territory of the Gray Lady, and the male lead is Theran, Lia and Jared's many times great-grandson (Dana Nehelians aren't among the long-lived races like the Hayllians and Eyerians). Several generations after Lia and Jared's death, Dana Nehele fell to Dorothea, and, like the rest of the Realm, has been "raped [of] everything [it is] until there's nothing clean left to offer." (Thanks to mesmerising for the quote--I did a google search for it, and my first hit was her lovely Daemon Sadi website. Go Team Fangirl!) But even after Jaenelle's Witchstorm that destroyed the twisted Blood (two years ago in book time), Dana Nehele's been going through some tough times. After the Witchstorm, the landens (the non-Blood residents) rose up, tired of centuries of abuse, and began butchering the Blood that was left. At the book's start, Dana Nehele has lost half of the remaining Blood, the land is dying, and there may soon be no Territory left. And so, Theran, the last of the Grayhaven line, comes to the realization that any sane Warlord Prince would come to:
Queens aren't just a rank in the world of the Black Jewels--girls are born Queens; it's a special innate trait. Queens can be born into any Blood family, and can be any Jewel. They are the focal point of any Blood society, the Blood's moral center (well, she's supposed to be...) and the heart of the land. Part of the reason Dorothea's scheme worked so well was because Warlord Princes need a Queen to bond with. So she'd go in, murder all the Queens as strong or stronger than she was, then take all the lighter Jeweled Queens away, train them up to be like her, and then send them back. Faced with the choice between her twisted pets or no queens at all, many of the Warlord Princes would bond with them, and get all screwed up. Dorothea's pet Queens would do the same to the following generations, causing a similar pattern in the next generation of Warlord Princes. They'd grow (more) vicious and violent, causing the witches to try to break or enslave them, causing the males to try to break younger witches before they could grow up...and society spirals ever-downward in a cycle of abuse, vengeance, and death. Dorthea was nothing if not diabolically evil--she poisoned an entire Realm, setting herself up as both the font of all evil and yet the only wellspring of relative safety. But enough of the history lesson. Go read the books if you want more info--they're so worth it.
Anywho, there are a few Queens in Dana Nehele who survived the purge, but they're all too old, too young, or shaping up to be no better than the Queens who died during the Witchstorm--though, to be fair, these are all adolescent girls who suddenly find themselves outranking the rest of Blood society. I'm sure most of them are correctable. They just need a firm hand and a bit of guidance; unfortunately, all the males are too twitchy and scarred from the past to provide that firm hand. They're still stuck in that "Strike First" mindset, and will kill the girls rather than take a chance that they'll become the Queens they just got rid of. Seriously, Dana Nehele is on the brink of utter collapse. Theran recognizes this, and knows they need a Queen, one who can potentially heal the Territory, instead of tearing it apart. HIs family has a tradition that if Dana Nehele is in terrible danger, and there is nothing that the Greyhaven family can do to fix it, one of their line can go and ask Daemon Sadi for a favor. Once. Theran decides that now is that time, and travels to the Keep to see if that favor can be cashed in for a spare Kaeleer Queen.
Cause, y'know, Kaeleer's just got them hanging around in droves.
I don't like Theran. Of course, you're not supposed to, but whatever. He's hard-headed, arrogant, and stupid. Most of the males in this series are the first two; it's the last one that drives me nuts. He goes to the Keep, pisses off Papa Saetan, wanders around Halaway, insults Sylvia (he doesn't like her haircut and the fact that she's wearing pants), and dismisses Cassie, the Queen that Jaenelle handpicks to be the Queen of Dana Nehele, out of hand. He also thinks that Jaenelle's just some Queen too weak to have her own court, so clearly, he's not the brightest guy on the planet. His main problem is that he doesn't look past the surface of things, so when he sees Cassie, he sees only that she's unattractive and wears a Lighter Jewel (she wears a Rose Jewel). In his defense, he was looking for a Queen who could dazzle and inspire what's left of the Blood in Dana Nehele; a Darker Jeweled witch who could go in and fix stuff by force if necessary. Personally, I think he'd be glad to get a Lighter witch (if she starts showing signs of being no better than the others, he and the others could take her down no problem), but then again, I think logically.
I think my main problem with this book is that Bishop doesn't explain why he takes such an instant dislike of Cassie until nearly the end. All we know is that he judges her and finds her wanting almost instantly, with no real clear reason why or on what merits. All we get is that he finds her incredibly unattractive, which just makes him seem hideously shallow. I think she does it so that we dislike Theran that much more, but, trust me, she gives us plenty of reasons to hate on him beyond that. Giving us his motivations early on wouldn't make us forget that he specializes in ass-haberdashery, but it would complicate his character a bit more, which is always good. He's got a bunch of redeeming qualities, so he's not an outright villain or anything; he's just a total anti-hero whose anti nearly outweighs his hero.
Speaking of outright villains, we get to the part of the book that is, above and beyond, my favorite. There aren't any real villains in this book. There's one chick who is a "bad guy," but she gets maybe 10 pages of face-time, some of which take place after her death (btw, you just shouldn't fuck with a SaDiablo, okay? I'm not sure why some people haven't learned that lesson yet. Normally I'd say, "because everyone who fucks with a SaDiablo ends up dead," but they usually die in such a horrific fashion that WORD SPREADS. Their deaths are not only punishment but A WARNING TO OTHERS.)
The reason I love the lack of villains is because the parts of this series I love most is not the titanic struggle of good versus evil. Tangled Webs was great, but I loved this book better, because Tangled Webs was mostly about beating the bad guy. It's also why I like Heir to the Shadows more than Queen of the Darkness. I like the homey, family scenes where we see them interact as friends, family, lovers, etc. I giggle and beat shogunhb in the arm every time the three most powerful people in the history of the Blood are bullied by their servants (another trope I love: the bullying servant who's been with the family so long that he IS family). Beale and Mrs. Beale are amongst my favorite characters. These lines had me almost in tears (they will be much more amusing if you've read the books and know the characters):
"Mother Night, he was going to have to tell the butler not to arrange for an intimate dinner. Under the intimidating exterior, Beale was a romantic and wouldn't hesitate to exile Theran to a guest room and a dinner provided on a tray so that Lady Angelline could have a private dinner..."
"Using Craft, the footman sailed a hat across the great hall. Nighthawk* caught the brim of the hate with his teeth, bobbed his head, then turned and walked out the front door, which closed behind him.
Daemon stared at the door. Mother Night, Jaenelle was going to be so pissed when Nighthawk planted his feet and refused to move until she put on the hat.
'So,' he said. 'Which one of you told the horse about the hat?'
When neither Beale nor Holt answered, he nodded. 'Three out of three of us, then.'"
*a Kindred horse, which means he's intelligent, wears Jewels, and has a rank--he's a Gray-Jeweled Warlord Prince, which means he outranks Theran, a thought that amuses me endlessly.
Comment from his valet to Daemon Sadi, Black-Jeweled Warlord Prince, natural Black Widow, son of the High Lord of Hell, and a man who spent 1700 years destroying courts while he was enslaved: "Prince, you passed cranky halfway through breakfast--which is when Beale suggested I pack a bag for you so that you could leave the moment you finally decided to go to the Keep."
The family scenes are so complex, it's impossible not to love them. The secondary plot involves Daemon and Jaenelle (always a good idea). Daemon is knocked emotionally off-kilter when he meets with Theran, because Theran's resemblance to Jared brings back all sorts of memories about his time in Tereille before Jaenelle came. Later, Jaenelle accidentally triggers the emergence of the Sadist, and that scares the hell out of Daemon. Fragile, he goes to Saetan, who comforts him and loves him and is basically an awesome father...and, minutes after Daemon's sent to rest, Saetan goes to Jaenelle's room to find out if he's going to have to execute his son. Just...damn
And, later, when Saetan takes a quick jaunt into the Twisted Kingdom, it's up to Lucivar and Daemon to get him out.
This family dynamic is what I love: Lucivar, an Ebon-Gray Warlord Prince, getting bullied by his wife, a gentle Rose hearthwitch. Jaenelle, whose full power destroyed two-thirds of the Blood in all three Realms, is grumpily resigned to wearing her hat. The entire family is terrorized by Daemonar, Lucivar's seven(?) year old son. It's great. Sure, outside the walls of their homes, their names and exploits are whispered about in fearful tones, but in their house, Saetan knows better than to sass Mrs. Beale, especially when he's been foolish enough to step foot into her kitchen--never mind that, technically, the SaDiablos own the house.
I also liked that there was a little more interaction with the landens. She seems to be putting them in more and more. I approve of that. There's also Vae, a kindred Sceltie who's a bossy little bitch and an absolute gem--especially since she has very strong opinions about males, especially stupid human males (she's allowed to nip them, because they're in 'training'). I wish we could see a bit more of the coven and the boyos, but there was already so much going on in the book, that adding them in could have just been too much. In future books, though, I'd like to see more of them. Maybe Jaenelle and Daemon could visit the Dea al Mon? Or Tigrelan?
The Shadow Queen was like an old sweater: comfy and beloved. Bishop still nails the characters' voices, knows exactly what to write to make me giggle like a nutcase, and can tug my heartstrings like no ones business. She juggles POV well--she uses 3rd person limited, but from multiple characters' viewpoints. However, each she never switches POV mid-scene, and each character's voice is so clear that you know immediately when she's made the jump and into whose head we've jumped to, even if she doesn't say so immediately. Even the new characters individualized, so you really get to know them, even though I doubt we'll ever see them again. It might be a bit confusing for folks who've never read The Invisible Ring; she references it a lot. It's not necessary to have read it to understand The Shadow Queen, but you are going to miss some of the subtleties.
5 stars
I also give it five bruises, which is likely the number that I gave to shogunhb and ddrpolaris while reading it. I flail a lot when I'm excited.