For dedicated (and somewhat uncritical) fans only; others might prefer to revisit the previous work.
Carey retells her debut novel, the darkly erotic political fantasy Kushiel’s Dart (2001), from the perspective of the protagonist’s lover, the warrior-priest Joscelin Verreuil.
Kushiel’s Dart was a first-person narrative by Phèdre, a courtesan and spy living in an alternate version of France called Terre d’Ange, who was chosen by the angel Kushiel as an “anguissette”: someone who finds physical pain and submission pleasurable. She uses all of her skills and capacities to ferret out a conspiracy against the queen of Terre d’Ange and foil an invasion. In the process, she falls in love with her bodyguard, Joscelin Verreuil, who breaks several vows he has made to the angel Cassiel—including celibacy—when he returns her affections and does his utmost to protect her against a number of threats. Now we get the opportunity to revisit these events from Joscelin’s point of view, but whether the reader will feel enriched by this is questionable. Phèdre is a unique, complicated character who uses her dark desires to disguise that she is also a fiercely intelligent and well-educated spy with a strong independent streak. As her fellow courtesan/spy Alcuin notes, she’s a paradox; as such, the first-person narration in Kushiel’s Dart helps to reveal her thought processes. But Joscelin is basically a trope character: a priest who breaks his vows for a woman and is tormented by the conflicting forces of love, loyalty, and faith. Third person makes him inscrutable and fascinating. You don’t entirely know what he’s really like in the beginning of Carey’s first book; we come to learn that he's a deeply feeling, passionate person whose attempt at stoicism ultimately fails. The first-person narration in this book makes him less mysterious and compelling, which is too bad. This is also an aggressively adjunct book that assumes you’ve read the source material, because it races by all the delicate details of the political conspiracy and how they’re ferreted out. It is somewhat fun to revisit the story, but it feels like an echo, perfunctory and lacking the poetry of the original. The additional material without Phèdre is frankly not all that interesting, either: In particular, Joscelin’s training to become a Cassiline Brother resembles practically every other fantasy novel’s sequence set in a remote school where children learn an elite skill.
For dedicated (and somewhat uncritical) fans only; others might prefer to revisit the previous work.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9781250208330
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
A clever and inspiring reimagining of a little-remembered time and place.
Medieval history and Celtic mythology merge in an enchanting tale.
Arden, best known for her Winternight Trilogy, here turns from medieval Russia to Europe during the same period. Anne of Brittany—a real person—is 19 when the novel begins in the late 15th century, a sovereign duchess whose father, the duke, has been dead since she was a child. Described as “small and glossy as a cat in a dairy,” she’s desperately trying to avoid marrying Charles VIII, the king of France, which would mean the dissolution of her country. She conceives a plan to conduct a unicorn hunt in the ancient, haunted forest of Broceliande, thinking she will be able to secretly arrange a proxy wedding to Maximilien of Austria, heir to the Holy Roman Empire. While there, she encounters not only an actual unicorn but an evil enchanter who has designs on her kingdom. With the unlikely aid of the chivalrous (and undeniably attractive) Louis of Orleans, who has been sent by Charles’ sister Marguerite to betray Anne, as well as Anne’s spunky younger sister, Isabeau; a clever peasant girl, Elesbed; and a cat named Butter, Anne works feverishly to protect her people from sinister forces both political and supernatural. Arden takes her time immersing the reader in this thoroughly and intricately imagined world, where historical figures bump up against an enigmatic korriganed queen, at least one monstrous sea-dragon, a herd of undead “anaon,” and a whole Breton city that has been trapped in time. This is an alternate history in which the admirable Anne, freed from the confines of textbooks, gets to ask the question, “Shall we not write our own story?” Here, love and duty reach an understanding, and courtly romance makes friends with a steamier variety of physical contact. Fans of jousts, spells, dark magic, and brave women will find plenty of each here.
A clever and inspiring reimagining of a little-remembered time and place.Pub Date: June 2, 2026
ISBN: 9780593128282
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2026
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