FINDING RAMANATA

In Dabney’s fantasy sequel, a highly skilled climber scales a precarious mountain and searches for evidence of a king’s deceit.

Klarke Ascher is finally an Ascenditure, one of the elite climbers who perform maintenance on dams and collect medicinal flowers. While she’s earned the reluctant respect of some of her fellow Ascenditures, women in her kingdom of Ectair are still treated appallingly. Klarke can’t even choose whom she wants to marry, though her betrothed is Prince Otto, her trustworthy best friend. Both she and Otto want the duplicitous King Adolar off the throne. One way of accomplishing this goal, Klarke believes, is to find the prince’s secret twin sister, thereby proving the king concealed her birth to quash a prophecy. Because she’s likely in the adjoining kingdom of Ainar (“She’s there. I know it, and I have to find her”), Klarke makes certain the Ascenditures join a “peace climb” there with Ainarian climbers. Reaching the summit is challenging enough, but further complications arise, from a romantic interest in another Ascenditure to the possibility that someone will sabotage her climb or even murder her. Dabney’s sophomore installment in her Daughter of the Summit and Sea series teems with subplots, some of which carry over from the preceding novel. (Mysterious climber Haydrich, for example, has a shady plan that, he claims, aligns with Klarke’s, while Klarke’s late mother’s cryptic note citing “Ramanata” may reference Otto’s sister.) An extraordinary cast of characters enriches the plotlines, including Naisae, the woman who leads Ainar’s climbing team, and Nopsan, an imprisoned climber with striking similarities to Klarke’s long-lost childhood friend. Throughout, the book has a strong but never overbearing theme of discrimination: Otto must keep his sexuality (and his boyfriend) secret, and a climber who identifies as neither male nor female is dubbed a “freak.” The author’s tight narrative is at its best when Klarke and the Ascenditures are fully engaged in the craft, hanging off a bridge to make repairs or enduring the thin air on a blisteringly cold mountain.

Sublime characters headline this mythical tale of mysteries and perseverance.