Bishop, Anne - Tangled Webs and The Shadow Queen
I have a not-so-secret fondness for the Black Jewels books, having glommed onto them back in high school.
Tangled Webs is a story about a writer trapping Surreal and other people in a haunted house, while The Shadow Queen is more substantial. The latter is about Dena Nehele after the events of the trilogy and how Theran Grayhaven is trying to find a new, good Queen for the land. He ends up with Cassidy, a light-jeweled Queen from Kaeleer whose entire court abandoned her because she was not flashy and gorgeous. Sadly, Theran doesn't think much of her either, and the book is about Cassidy and Theran and Theran's cousin Gray and trying to rebuild Dena Nehele.
Both books suffer from too much of Jaenelle and the boys; I was more okay with it in Tangled Webs, given how insubstantial the story was, but they really are too much in The Shadow Queen. Both books deal with how Daemon, Saetan, and Lucivar are still recovering from centuries of abuse, and although I'm always happy to see old characters again, the SaDiablo storyline in The Shadow Queen has nothing to do with the main plot, feels inorganic to the characters, and comes and goes too quickly for what it tries to do.
On the other hand, I do like that Lucivar gets more to do in these books; I feel he's often overshadowed by his brother and father.
Anyway. Tangled Webs is skippable. I found the focus on the writer to be indulgent and boring, and the message about part-Blood characters trying to learn about their heritage felt insulting, especially given the power differential between the Blood and the landen. Surreal is in the book, but I feel she is never as scary and as dangerous as we are told she is, which makes me sad.
The Shadow Queen is more interesting, and although it does the whole women-connected-to-earth thing, I like that it is about aftereffects and healing and piecing societies back together after the big war. I also like that it focuses on less powerful Queens and Warlord Princes and that it gives a look at non-SaDiablo people in the world.
I find I'm still drawn to the world in the Black Jewels books, although I think it frequently fails in execution; the idea of a world with Queens as the most powerful and most fearsome people is still attractive to me. But that may also be high-school me talking!
Tangled Webs is a story about a writer trapping Surreal and other people in a haunted house, while The Shadow Queen is more substantial. The latter is about Dena Nehele after the events of the trilogy and how Theran Grayhaven is trying to find a new, good Queen for the land. He ends up with Cassidy, a light-jeweled Queen from Kaeleer whose entire court abandoned her because she was not flashy and gorgeous. Sadly, Theran doesn't think much of her either, and the book is about Cassidy and Theran and Theran's cousin Gray and trying to rebuild Dena Nehele.
Both books suffer from too much of Jaenelle and the boys; I was more okay with it in Tangled Webs, given how insubstantial the story was, but they really are too much in The Shadow Queen. Both books deal with how Daemon, Saetan, and Lucivar are still recovering from centuries of abuse, and although I'm always happy to see old characters again, the SaDiablo storyline in The Shadow Queen has nothing to do with the main plot, feels inorganic to the characters, and comes and goes too quickly for what it tries to do.
On the other hand, I do like that Lucivar gets more to do in these books; I feel he's often overshadowed by his brother and father.
Anyway. Tangled Webs is skippable. I found the focus on the writer to be indulgent and boring, and the message about part-Blood characters trying to learn about their heritage felt insulting, especially given the power differential between the Blood and the landen. Surreal is in the book, but I feel she is never as scary and as dangerous as we are told she is, which makes me sad.
The Shadow Queen is more interesting, and although it does the whole women-connected-to-earth thing, I like that it is about aftereffects and healing and piecing societies back together after the big war. I also like that it focuses on less powerful Queens and Warlord Princes and that it gives a look at non-SaDiablo people in the world.
I find I'm still drawn to the world in the Black Jewels books, although I think it frequently fails in execution; the idea of a world with Queens as the most powerful and most fearsome people is still attractive to me. But that may also be high-school me talking!