Sometimes, the timing just isn’t right for a particular book. Having chosen to start reading Kushiel’s Dart at an incredibly stressful time where work completely took over my life, it took me forever to get through this as I’d constantly find myself having zoned out thinking about a work problem and then struggling to find the thread again. I’m not sure whether that would have happened had I not been so stressed, but as it was Kushiel’s Dart didn’t hook me in the way that […]
I can’t be objective with this book – CBR10Bingo Throwback Thursday – Bingo!
In 2001 I was an administrative assistant for the managers that oversaw the book buyers at Borders Books (may it rest in peace). One of the buyers thought I would like Kushiel’s Dart and recommended it. Once in my hands I couldn’t put it down, reading so fast that on subsequent readings I discovered whole paragraphs that had previously been skipped. It was completely different from any fantasy I had read before and quickly became one of my most recommended books to anyone who I thought […]
Questioning identity and a prophecy to fullfill
Jacqueline Carey is an author that delights in taking the known and giving it a twist to make something new. She burst on to the fantasy scene with the epic Kushiel’s Dart series where she took the trope of a damsel in distress and turned it on it’s head. Touched by Kushiel, the god of justice and punishment, to experience pleasure in pain Phedre uses her skills as a courtesan and spy to save her realm. Her next work The Sundering duology asked the question what makes one side […]
“We speak of stories ending, when in truth it is we who end. The stories go on and on.”
In a short time I’ve really become quite devoted to this series. As I’ve said in my earlier reviews of Kushiel’s Avatar‘s predecessors, these books encapsulate everything that I want in a fantasy series. Balanced on the shoulders of an incomparable heroine, the story is both epic and personal. With every installment, Carey takes the opportunity to expand the world building out into foreign countries that are recognizably rooted in real-life analogs. So far we’d seen Scotland, Scandanavia, Italy, and now this book gets into […]
Miranda and Caliban – what came before the tempest
Jacqueline Carey has been one of my favorite authors for almost 16 years now, since the publishing of her first novel, “Kushiel’s Dart”. Full disclosure; I am a full on fan girl who named my eldest daughter after one of Jacqueline’s characters. I always get excited when she shares on her blog her current writing project. In 2015 she announced that she had written a new book that would be a retelling of “The Tempest” but told from Miranda and Caliban’s perspective. However, due to […]
Still great
After finishing the phenomenal Kushiel’s Dart, I was in a hurry to continue with the series. Nonetheless, I approached Kushiel’s Chosen with caution, because how often is it really that a sequel makes good on the promise of a first book that I had loved so thoroughly? In this case, my fears were unfounded. Jacqueline Carey delivered all of the complexity, intrigue, sensuality, and magic from the first book while engrossing me in the unique culture of yet another of Terre D’Ange’s neighboring countries. While […]