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Daine and Numair are suddenly swept into the otherworldly home of the gods after facing …
Review of 'Realms of the Gods' on 'Storygraph'
3 stars
The plot follows Daine and Numair almost dying before being transported to the Divine Realms, where Daine meets her father and sees her mother again. They find out that Chaos is helping Ozorne or someone in his army, and set out across various sections of the Divine Realms to see if Skysong’s dragon relatives will transport them back home so they can help in the war. Along the way, Daine and Numair end up acknowledging their love for each other and start to figure out the next steps in their relationship.
I hadn’t read this in a long time, and I’d forgotten that Daine isn’t yet an adult here. She’s sixteen to Numair’s thirty. Numair is completely aware that to pursue Daine romantically and/or sexually, due to their relationship as teacher and student and the fact that he’s almost twice her age, is likely to be unequal and mean he’s …
The plot follows Daine and Numair almost dying before being transported to the Divine Realms, where Daine meets her father and sees her mother again. They find out that Chaos is helping Ozorne or someone in his army, and set out across various sections of the Divine Realms to see if Skysong’s dragon relatives will transport them back home so they can help in the war. Along the way, Daine and Numair end up acknowledging their love for each other and start to figure out the next steps in their relationship.
I hadn’t read this in a long time, and I’d forgotten that Daine isn’t yet an adult here. She’s sixteen to Numair’s thirty. Numair is completely aware that to pursue Daine romantically and/or sexually, due to their relationship as teacher and student and the fact that he’s almost twice her age, is likely to be unequal and mean he’s taking advantage of her trust and inexperience, even if he doesn’t intend it. After they kiss he has a short speech this effect. That sets up the idea that normally this would be a problem, but the fact that they do end up together throughout the rest of the book means that their relationship is treated as an exception to the general rule. It makes the this plot arc feel like grooming on Numair’s part, or at least not taking the necessary actions in support of his knowledge that he’s in a massive position of power over a literal child. No matter how much Numair does not want to be that kind of manipulative person as an idea, he ends up perfectly fine with continuing to pursue this relationship once Daine insists that she loves him and knows what she’s doing. I like a lot of their actual dynamic in ordinary scenes, but even if she was twenty or twenty-five when he’s thirty then there’s still the problem that he’s her magic teacher. Because of how the characters are written, things work out and he’s not screwing her over, but if he were a slightly shittier person she’d have a lot of trouble getting help or getting away.
As the final book in the quartet, this wraps up the fate of former emperor Ozorne and addresses the gods’ perspective on the former barrier between the Mortal Realm and the Divine Realms. We finally meet Skysong’s family and answer whether they’re fine with her remaining in Daine’s care. It also puts words to the attraction between Daine and Numair which has been subtly (and occasionally not-so-subtly) teased in the earlier books. At long last Daine meets her father, as well as finding out where her ma went after she died. This introduces and resolves Daine and Numair being transported to the Divine Realms. It’s the final book of the quartet but there clearly were plans for more Tortall books, so this leaves open whether or not Daine and Numair will stay together and maybe get married.
It would not make sense to start here, as the point of this is to address things left open from previous books. Even something as simple as Daine’s parentage has been slowly teased for three previous books, so getting the answer almost immediately in this one would feel anticlimactic to anyone who hasn’t read the others.
This will either not feel like a lore dump at all, or feel like a stack of lore packets in a trench coat. Almost every moment is designed to show off something about the setting, the Gods, or various immortals. It’s so embedded in the story that it’s inescapable but manages to feel seamless for long stretches so it’s usually not bothersome. For a tour of the Divine realms it’s pretty cool. I’m a little thrown by the decision to make the Platypus god say “G’Day” like a cartoon of an Australian. Overall it's an interesting but ultimately skippable end to the quartet.
Growing up on the moon, Xingyin is accustomed to solitude, unaware that she is being …
Review of 'Daughter of the Moon Goddess' on 'Storygraph'
5 stars
The worldbuilding unfolds slowly, with early mentions of the various kingdoms supplemented later on by more detailed descriptions once Xingyin actually travels there. The descriptions are evocative but not overwhelming, tending to focus more on her thoughts about what she observes. There’s a strong focus on Xingyin’s internal life, as her relationships get more complicated but she’s still keeping her parentage a secret. She’s the daughter of the moon goddess, having grown up in secret since her mother was exiled to the moon after claiming the immortality meant for her husband, Xingyin’s father.
I like the first third and I love the second half, in between those sections the pacing gets a little weird though it’s still pretty good. Mid-book events which in some other story might be a training montage instead are collapsed into a very brief mention as several years are skipped at once. Xingyin ends up in …
The worldbuilding unfolds slowly, with early mentions of the various kingdoms supplemented later on by more detailed descriptions once Xingyin actually travels there. The descriptions are evocative but not overwhelming, tending to focus more on her thoughts about what she observes. There’s a strong focus on Xingyin’s internal life, as her relationships get more complicated but she’s still keeping her parentage a secret. She’s the daughter of the moon goddess, having grown up in secret since her mother was exiled to the moon after claiming the immortality meant for her husband, Xingyin’s father.
I like the first third and I love the second half, in between those sections the pacing gets a little weird though it’s still pretty good. Mid-book events which in some other story might be a training montage instead are collapsed into a very brief mention as several years are skipped at once. Xingyin ends up in the Celestial palace, surrounded by people who despise her for her class and who would detest her if they knew who her mother really was. After spending several years as the prince’s companion, she tries to make her own way by excelling at arms, becoming a formidable archer. Her goal is to earn a favor from the emperor in order to request her mother’s freedom.
Once place where this excels is in relationships, specifically the way that Xingyin’s relationships with Prince Liwei and Captain Wenzhi change over time. It is a love triangle, but one which at each stage feels like there are good reasons for the choices Xingyin is making. She proceeds as well as she can while figuring out who she wants, if anyone. I love the ending, it pulls things together in a fantastic way and lays the ground for what the sequel might cover while still letting this first book feel complete.
Ocean's Echo is a stand-alone space adventure about a bond that will change the fate …
Review of "Ocean's Echo" on 'Storygraph'
5 stars
*I received a free review copy in exchange for an honest review of this book.
OCEAN’S ECHO is the mind-control version of a forced marriage/fake dating plot… in space. It’s fantastic.
Tennal doesn’t want to be synced, Surit is affronted by the very idea that he’d be forced to mentally link for life with someone who’s unwilling. Together they hope to pretend the sync worked and fake it long enough for Tennal to get away and for Surit to keep his military career intact. The political intrigues are complex enough to imply a great deal of other stuff that’s happening while reducing the pieces Tennal and Surit have to track into a relatively small list.
I love Tennal and Surit, they make a very interesting team. Tennal is an absolute mess, and Surit is grounded in a way that lets him notice Tennal’s antics without getting bowled over. The course …
*I received a free review copy in exchange for an honest review of this book.
OCEAN’S ECHO is the mind-control version of a forced marriage/fake dating plot… in space. It’s fantastic.
Tennal doesn’t want to be synced, Surit is affronted by the very idea that he’d be forced to mentally link for life with someone who’s unwilling. Together they hope to pretend the sync worked and fake it long enough for Tennal to get away and for Surit to keep his military career intact. The political intrigues are complex enough to imply a great deal of other stuff that’s happening while reducing the pieces Tennal and Surit have to track into a relatively small list.
I love Tennal and Surit, they make a very interesting team. Tennal is an absolute mess, and Surit is grounded in a way that lets him notice Tennal’s antics without getting bowled over. The course of their relationship is affected early on by the circumstances of their meeting just as much as it is by their personalities, something which continues to matter right until the end of the book. It’s a character-focused story, centering their reactions to what’s happening whether or not one of them was the catalyst. They’re frequently buffeted by someone else’s moves, piecing together what’s going on and why while the adjust their course. It means that even though there’s a lot happening other than their relationship, everything is filtered through their processing of events, singly or together.
Though technically not a sequel, this is in the same universe as WINTER'S ORBIT. The main way this matters is they share a galactic convention for gender-markers by way of jewelry material. Someone could read them in either order or even just read one or the other and have everything make sense.
The ending leaves open the possibility that they’ll show up in later books, tying off major and minor plot threads so that this is a complete story on its own while giving an indication of what they’ll do next.
Sent to Carthak as part of the Tortallan peace delegation, Daine finds herself in the …
Review of 'Emperor Mage' on 'Storygraph'
3 stars
The worldbuilding focuses heavily on Carthak and almost completely ignores Tortall except when drawing some comparison between the two nations. It’s uncomfortably fascinated with slavery in Carthak, specifically with how it is carried out in the palace. It’s yet another white savior narrative (e.g. THE WOMAN WHO RIDES LIKE A MAN) in book three of a Tortall book. This is a bit subtler, since Daine had no intention of messing with the Carthaki way of life, slavery and all, but it turns out that some of the other characters have been actively involved at getting slaves out of the country. Daine’s goddess-driven involvement serves to mess things up for the Emperor, making Carthak much friendlier to Tortall than before their trip. Daine’s bonds with animals provide conversational opportunities for her to draw comparisons between slavery and the caging of animals.
This finally addresses the mentions of the Carthaki Emperor’s involvement …
The worldbuilding focuses heavily on Carthak and almost completely ignores Tortall except when drawing some comparison between the two nations. It’s uncomfortably fascinated with slavery in Carthak, specifically with how it is carried out in the palace. It’s yet another white savior narrative (e.g. THE WOMAN WHO RIDES LIKE A MAN) in book three of a Tortall book. This is a bit subtler, since Daine had no intention of messing with the Carthaki way of life, slavery and all, but it turns out that some of the other characters have been actively involved at getting slaves out of the country. Daine’s goddess-driven involvement serves to mess things up for the Emperor, making Carthak much friendlier to Tortall than before their trip. Daine’s bonds with animals provide conversational opportunities for her to draw comparisons between slavery and the caging of animals.
This finally addresses the mentions of the Carthaki Emperor’s involvement with the recent influx of immortals, but it mostly does so by introducing the Emperor himself at long last. It has a new storyline involving a Tortallan delegation to Carthak for peace talks, with Daine alone to heal the Emperor’s birds, if she can. A very major thing related to Daine is introduced and resolved here when the Badger passes along a temporary power at the behest of a Carthaki goddess. It leaves several things for later, such as Daine’s growing understanding of her parentage. The trick is that it doesn't really move anything forward (except for Daine almost beginning to understand how much Numair cares for her), so it's very skippable. I actually think that going straight from the first to the fourth book in the quartet might work well because then it wouldn't feel as weird with Numair being more attached to Daine as she grows up.
It can stand alone enough that someone could probably read just this book and have a good time, understanding almost all of what happened. It would help to have read either of the first two books in the quartet (benefitting more from the second book), but this is a very episodic series and doesn’t require the other stories in order to make sense.
The plot centers around Daine and a Tortallan delegation visiting Carthak for peace talks, but Daine gets some divine attention and is used to send a last-chance warning to the Emperor before things get very bad for him. There's also a persistent narrative about the presence and treatment of slaves in Carthak, since Tortall hasn't had slaves in a few centuries. At several points the narrative ends up just describing a bunch of dinosaurs, along with the magical means of learning about their lives based on fossils and the work of seers. This is a pretty strong self-contained narrative, it's just in the context of yet another instance of (very white but not homogenous) Tortall claiming moral/cultural superiority over another (primarily brown/black) country that this looks a bit off. I wish there were more named characters of color who aren't enslaved, since I'm pretty sure the only ones are the Emperor and his heir, and one of those two is a villain.
It's a very weird anti-slavery PSA with resurrected dinosaurs, completely skippable within the series.
THE WICKED BARGAIN follows Mar after they survive the storm which (at El Diabolo’s seeming behest) kills their father and his crew when the terms of his bargain with El Diabolo concludes. Mar is picked up by a different pirate ship and works to conceal their magic as they become closer with the captain’s son, Bas. They have a few months to make a deal with El Diabolo or lose their father forever, but then a demonio named Dami shows up and offers another way to make a deal. As time runs out and the pirates run into trouble, Mar must figure out how to accept their own magic. I’m extremely happy this this has a nonbinary main character and no gender-related moment where someone else “catches” them or “figures out” something based on their body. There are scenes which emotionally have some similarities in terms of the danger of …
THE WICKED BARGAIN follows Mar after they survive the storm which (at El Diabolo’s seeming behest) kills their father and his crew when the terms of his bargain with El Diabolo concludes. Mar is picked up by a different pirate ship and works to conceal their magic as they become closer with the captain’s son, Bas. They have a few months to make a deal with El Diabolo or lose their father forever, but then a demonio named Dami shows up and offers another way to make a deal. As time runs out and the pirates run into trouble, Mar must figure out how to accept their own magic. I’m extremely happy this this has a nonbinary main character and no gender-related moment where someone else “catches” them or “figures out” something based on their body. There are scenes which emotionally have some similarities in terms of the danger of discovery and uncertainty about the other person’s reaction, but they’re all related to Mar’s magic rather than their body or gender.
The worldbuilding has a degree of specificity which is enough to place it in history (with the addition of magic) but generally avoid infodumping. It is in a particular time and place (the Caribbean in 1820), but what matters emotionally to Mar is their personal timeline and recent tragedy. There’s frequent use of Spanish, enough to make the characters fluently multilingual without making the text difficult for readers (like myself) with little to no understanding of Spanish. It seemed like anything of importance to the plot was either slightly paraphrased in English after the Spanish portion, could be inferred from other characters' reactions, or took the form of small words and phrases intermingled with otherwise English sentences and were understandable from the surrounding context. The important thing from all that is that the characters’ speech supports the other forms of worldbuilding to create the setting and feel.
The first half is pretty good, but this comes alive in the second half as the setting changes and the dangers became more concrete. Mar is tense from almost the start, but it takes a while for them to open up enough to explain why they're afraid of more than just discovery when it comes to using their magic. Mar's rapport with Bas takes a long time to build, though they interact frequently because Mar kind of becomes Bas's assistant. Their early interactions with the demonio, Dami, are even more strained because Dami is trying to get Mar to do several things they refuse to even consider (to use more magic and to make a deal). How much I liked each of them tracked pretty closely with how Mar's feelings changed towards them, as initially annoying interactions made more sense when additional context was provided.
The Fae never disappeared they just learned to hide themselves. Toby Daye is half fae …
Review of 'Rosemary and Rue' on 'Storygraph'
5 stars
Rosemary and Rue is drenched in blood and magic; October's path is filled with death as she races against time to solve a murder before it kills her.
I love urban fantasy, stories with the fae, and murder mysteries, so I had a great time reading this one. It's so fully centered in the convergence of those genres that if that combination doesn't sound like a good time then this maybe isn't the book for you, but it was perfect for me. Stories with the fae have to decide how relatable or inscrutable they'll be, and I especially liked this book's take on changelings as a way to bridge the reader's understanding of the other supernatural creatures. While many of the tropes were familiar, the way the Faerie elements are treated here was a great mix of leaning into the genre and building something fresh and new. The resolution was …
Rosemary and Rue is drenched in blood and magic; October's path is filled with death as she races against time to solve a murder before it kills her.
I love urban fantasy, stories with the fae, and murder mysteries, so I had a great time reading this one. It's so fully centered in the convergence of those genres that if that combination doesn't sound like a good time then this maybe isn't the book for you, but it was perfect for me. Stories with the fae have to decide how relatable or inscrutable they'll be, and I especially liked this book's take on changelings as a way to bridge the reader's understanding of the other supernatural creatures. While many of the tropes were familiar, the way the Faerie elements are treated here was a great mix of leaning into the genre and building something fresh and new. The resolution was surprising while also fitting the story that led up to it. A lot of ground was laid to sustain a long-running series (at the time of my review the 14th book in this series has been published), so I'm excited to dig into this one. The main story in this book was wrapped up to my satisfaction, but it's obvious that the world traced here can hold so many more stories.
Stalking Darkness is a fantasy novel by American writer Lynn Flewelling, the second book in …
Review of 'Stalking Darkness' on 'Storygraph'
4 stars
STALKING DARKNESS finally answers the big mystery that has Nysander swearing people into secrecy if he tells them anything at all. Alec continues to be an excellent student of thievery and hidden things, and Seregil is maybe almost someday thinking about perhaps telling Alec he likes him... at a later date.
The plot follows Alec, Seregil, Nysander, and Micum as they are living life and doing sneaky (or magic) things. Seregil has a brief quest by himself at Nysander's direction, and a lot of the emotional tension in the first half related to Seregil trying to navigate the increasingly romantic direction of his already intense feelings for Alec. Mysterious antagonists have been tracking them since the first book, and their nefarious plan (centuries in the making) has finally come to fruition. Once they make their big move, the rest of the book is devoted to trying to stop them and …
STALKING DARKNESS finally answers the big mystery that has Nysander swearing people into secrecy if he tells them anything at all. Alec continues to be an excellent student of thievery and hidden things, and Seregil is maybe almost someday thinking about perhaps telling Alec he likes him... at a later date.
The plot follows Alec, Seregil, Nysander, and Micum as they are living life and doing sneaky (or magic) things. Seregil has a brief quest by himself at Nysander's direction, and a lot of the emotional tension in the first half related to Seregil trying to navigate the increasingly romantic direction of his already intense feelings for Alec. Mysterious antagonists have been tracking them since the first book, and their nefarious plan (centuries in the making) has finally come to fruition. Once they make their big move, the rest of the book is devoted to trying to stop them and save some of their victims. This connects with Beka's storyline in an unexpected but narratively neat way (though very bad for a bunch of her fellow soldiers).
Seregil's early mission features a far-away mountain-dwelling culture whose practices around visitors feel like a colonial fever dream. They're extremely welcoming, don't realize Seregil isn't the one actually doing magic (he's using prefabs from Nysndander), and won't take no for an answer on the subject of Seregil sleeping with their daughters. The reason for that last one is that they need new blood from visitors in order to not inbreed themselves too badly due to their isolation, but it comes off rather badly. If an individual character with a name seduced him during his visit that would be one thing, but what the text describes is a rotation between houses with sets of sisters wanting to sleep with him while he's in their dwelling. Thankfully this section avoids specific details of those encounters, but the whole thing felt very strange. A pair of later scenes where Seregil goes to brothels of his own accord felt more intimate than all the mountain encounters combined.
Noting here that when Alec has his first sexual experience (with a character we've been set up to dislike) it's unclear whether it's assault, but at the very least his will was magically impaired which makes true consent impossible. The story treats it as uncertain and the other characters follow Alec's lead on how to react to the event, but if I could change one thing I'd make it more obvious as to whether Alec was actually consenting.
This wraps up a bunch of things so completely that it feels like it could have been book two of a duology rather than what ended up as a seven book series. It finally answers and resolves the mystery of the scar on Seregil's chest and all the questions Nysander refuses to answer. It also (at long last) handles the extremely slow burn of Seregil and Alec's relationship as it changes from mentor and pupil to maybe something differently intimate. There's a new storyline related to Micum's daughter Beka joining the army. Most of what it resolves are things (and people) introduced in the first book, so much so that while there might be some small thing which appears and ends here I can't think of it.
I like the audiobook narrator and would happily listen to them narrate this series or another. The rotation of narrators sound consistent with their previous appearances, but I didn't strictly keep track of whether any were new this time around. This time we do get Beka's perspective on her first experience of war and command, I don't think she narrated at all in the first book. I like her sections, it's nice to see her living up to her warrior dreams from LUCK IN THE SHADOWS.
The ending gets much bleaker than anything in the series until that point, with some of the main characters in the hands of the villains and a long road to any potential rescue. The story handles it well, taking seriously the trauma inflicted, but it gets pretty stressful.
So much of this is built on LUCK IN THE SHADOWS that I don't think it would make sense or be satisfying without having read that first book. The highs wouldn't be as high and the depths wouldn't be so tragically, crushingly low otherwise. I started reading this series because I wanted very long books with magic, queerness, thieving, and general skullduggery. This hit everything on my list, with a slow burn romance and some war tossed in for good measure.
Review of 'Cirque Du Freak #10: The Lake of Souls: Book 10 in the Saga of Darren Shan (Cirque Du Freak: the Saga of Darren Shan)' on 'Storygraph'
4 stars
THE LAKE OF SOULS follows Harkat and Darren in a very weird place on Mr. Tiny's direction, doing cryptic steps in order so that Harkat can find out who he was before he was a Little Person (a stitched-together creature made by Mr. Tiny from a soul that wanted a second chance). Once they reach the Lake of Souls, Harkat must retrieve his old soul and find out who he was before he died. Partway through they meet a very strange ex-pirate named Spits who (the book won't let you forget) really wants to drink alcohol. I wasn't enjoying how much he took over the narrative, but it has a great payoff so it works out overall.
This is the tenth book in the series and the first book of the final trilogy. It wraps up the long-teased question of Harkat's original identity, a mystery which has lingered since early …
THE LAKE OF SOULS follows Harkat and Darren in a very weird place on Mr. Tiny's direction, doing cryptic steps in order so that Harkat can find out who he was before he was a Little Person (a stitched-together creature made by Mr. Tiny from a soul that wanted a second chance). Once they reach the Lake of Souls, Harkat must retrieve his old soul and find out who he was before he died. Partway through they meet a very strange ex-pirate named Spits who (the book won't let you forget) really wants to drink alcohol. I wasn't enjoying how much he took over the narrative, but it has a great payoff so it works out overall.
This is the tenth book in the series and the first book of the final trilogy. It wraps up the long-teased question of Harkat's original identity, a mystery which has lingered since early in the series. While the need to answer the question is old, the way the do it is so strange of a quest that I do count it as a new storyline. While I knew they needed it answered, I wasn't expecting "shoved through a portal and told to figure it out or die" as the start of a quest. They get slightly more information, but it's nearly that cryptic and definitely that threatening at the time.
It introduces and resolves the backstory of a strange person they meet on their journey, as well as their best guess at what that strange place actually is. It's not the final book, and specifically teases that the final battle with the Vampaneze Lord will be some time in the future.
Darren is still the narrator, and he feels more like an adult in terms of what he knows, but his narrative style still feels like a teenager. Since this hits a sweet spot on his reactions feeling appropriate to the target audience while also not shying away from the horror in certain events.
Even though this is the start of a new arc in the series, it's the final arc which will wrap up everything they've been building towards. It's answer time, and if you hop right in without having sat with questions it won't be nearly as satisfying. Also, Darren is trying to figure out how to grieve for someone he lost in the previous book, and it won't have nearly the emotional impact it's meant to for someone who hasn't at least read as far back as the sixth book. For the big mystery of Harkat's identity, you really ought to go back to the fourth book where Harkat's first major journey with Darren takes place.
When humans start cutting down trees and digging holes in peaceful Dunlath Valley, the wolves …
Review of 'Wolf-Speaker' on 'Storygraph'
4 stars
As the second book in a quartet, this doesn’t wrap up anything from a previous book, but it spends time with the wolf pack Daine mentioned in WILD MAGIC. There’s a new storyline which is a combination of spying and a “save the forest” style mission. The Pack summoned Daine because the local two-leggers are destroying natural resources and making the land uninhabitable with their new mining and logging projects. When Daine and Numair arrive, they discover that there are a lot of potentially hostile mages who have no reason to be there. The rest of the plot focuses on Daine’s increasing connections with the local wildlife, and her growing mastery of her magic. Numair leaves to get help, leaving Daine to figure out things without his aid for long stretches.
The entire plot with finding out the problem and saving the valley is introduced and resolved within this book. …
As the second book in a quartet, this doesn’t wrap up anything from a previous book, but it spends time with the wolf pack Daine mentioned in WILD MAGIC. There’s a new storyline which is a combination of spying and a “save the forest” style mission. The Pack summoned Daine because the local two-leggers are destroying natural resources and making the land uninhabitable with their new mining and logging projects. When Daine and Numair arrive, they discover that there are a lot of potentially hostile mages who have no reason to be there. The rest of the plot focuses on Daine’s increasing connections with the local wildlife, and her growing mastery of her magic. Numair leaves to get help, leaving Daine to figure out things without his aid for long stretches.
The entire plot with finding out the problem and saving the valley is introduced and resolved within this book. It introduces a bunch of characters and factions who may be important in later books, but this story is very well-contained. It doesn't specifically leave anything for later, but it establishes new situations for most of the characters who were established in this book. I know from the sequels that certain details and characters do or don't matter for later books, but the story itself doesn't really give hints. The two major exceptions to this are that Daine has been trying to find out who her Da is since the first book so eventually she'll probably get an answer, and that Emperor Ozorne has been mentioned a lot and will likely be important. Anything else might or might not matter later. Daine feels a bit older than the last book. Clearly not an adult yet, she's now fourteen and a half (an age where half years are important) rather than the perhaps thirteen of the first book.
This story is so self-contained, with backstory succinctly conveyed when necessary, that it could make sense when read on its own. It could make even more since to anyone who has read any of the other Tortall books, even if not WILD MAGIC. It only barely features previously known characters, due to the event which effectively traps Daine in the valley almost as soon as they arrive.
I like this one generally, and it introduces several characters who will be more important later. It also features an expansion of Daine's powers in a major way. Not bad, but I remember liking the later books more (we'll see if they hold up on re-read).
Young Daine's knack with horses gets her a job helping the royal horsemistress drive a …
Review of 'Wild Magic' on 'Storygraph'
4 stars
Daine meets and then travels with Onua, the horse mistress of the Queen’s Riders, beginning as a hired hand for the journey to the palace and quickly becoming indispensable. She has wild magic so strong that she’s in danger of losing track of herself when she connects with animals (the People). They meet the mage, Numair Saladin, who becomes Daine’s master in her magical studies. The plot revolves around Daine connecting with People and with two-leggers, gradually feeling like she can belong again after having traumatically lost her home and family before the events of the book. I like almost all of this book, I just wish it didn't lean quite so hard into Daine's crush on Numair (a man twice her age and her mage master, besides).
There’s a new threat to Tortall: the immortals which were sealed away for several hundred years. Some of them seem to have …
Daine meets and then travels with Onua, the horse mistress of the Queen’s Riders, beginning as a hired hand for the journey to the palace and quickly becoming indispensable. She has wild magic so strong that she’s in danger of losing track of herself when she connects with animals (the People). They meet the mage, Numair Saladin, who becomes Daine’s master in her magical studies. The plot revolves around Daine connecting with People and with two-leggers, gradually feeling like she can belong again after having traumatically lost her home and family before the events of the book. I like almost all of this book, I just wish it didn't lean quite so hard into Daine's crush on Numair (a man twice her age and her mage master, besides).
There’s a new threat to Tortall: the immortals which were sealed away for several hundred years. Some of them seem to have been in on the return plan, working with enemies of Tortall. Others were unceremoniously plopped in the Mortal Realms with no forewarning and are making the best of it.
In characterization, this focuses nearly as much on animals as humans. Daine connects with many wild animals and enjoys meeting new kinds of creatures (especially on her first visit to the ocean). She also communicates with some of the immortals, particularly the ones with animal forms. I like Cloud, she’s technically an animal sidekick character but she is written much more like a human traveling companion in temperament and tone. She never feels like a gimmick, but is a full person with Daine.
For anyone who’s read The Song of the Lioness quartet, WILD MAGIC occasionally leans into a “where are they now” roundup of beloved characters from those earlier books. If you read this without those, it completely makes sense and doesn’t require background knowledge from that series in order to have 99% of its emotional impact. Usually it just means that readers of Alanna’s quartet may recognize returning characters by their descriptions a paragraph or two earlier than when Daine learns their names.
I like the big battle at the end, it fits the characters and gives a chance to show how much Daine has changed over the summer.
As the final book of Alanna’s quartet, this wraps up several things left hanging from the previous books. Since the previous book (rather dramatically) featured Alanna rejecting Jon’s proposal, this shows Alanna having other relationships (George and a new person), and gives a strong indication as to who Jon’s queen will be. It reveals the result of Thom’s magical experiments, Claw’s attempt at George’s throne, and the contents of the mysterious letter from the sorceress of Alois.
Because Liam is a new character, Alanna’s romance with him could count as a new storyline, but it’s a continuation of her previously established interest in Shang warriors. He assists in a quest which resulted from meeting the sorceress of Alois in the previous book (the Dominion Jewel), so it doesn’t really feel like a new storyline, though it’s definitely more information about Shang than we’d gotten before. Their relationship is both introduced …
As the final book of Alanna’s quartet, this wraps up several things left hanging from the previous books. Since the previous book (rather dramatically) featured Alanna rejecting Jon’s proposal, this shows Alanna having other relationships (George and a new person), and gives a strong indication as to who Jon’s queen will be. It reveals the result of Thom’s magical experiments, Claw’s attempt at George’s throne, and the contents of the mysterious letter from the sorceress of Alois.
Because Liam is a new character, Alanna’s romance with him could count as a new storyline, but it’s a continuation of her previously established interest in Shang warriors. He assists in a quest which resulted from meeting the sorceress of Alois in the previous book (the Dominion Jewel), so it doesn’t really feel like a new storyline, though it’s definitely more information about Shang than we’d gotten before. Their relationship is both introduced and resolved within this book.
Alanna is closer to her old self, with much less of the white savior nonsense from the previous book. This story is contained enough to be friendly to readers returning after a long break between books, but the finale will be much less impactful to someone who hasn’t at least read the first two books.
Based on the letter retrieved at the end of the previous book, Alanna and Coram go on a quest for the Dominion Jewel, a powerful artifact currently resting high in a specific mountain pass. I said there’s less white savior nonsense this time around, but the letter was specifically for the headman of the Bazhir tribe which adopted Alanna, and he returns it to her rather than go on the quest himself or giving it to someone who is of the tribe by birth. Also, we learn of at least one other person adopted by a different Bazhir tribe, so I get the impression that it’s common for the Bazhir to adopt outsiders, something which wasn’t clear before. While on the quest, they meet Liam, and later are joined by Thayet and Buri. When they return to Tortall they find that things are very wrong in a number of ways, all of which come to a head at Jon’s coronation in a pretty dramatic battle. The finale and its sequence of fights is one of my favorite moments in the series, for all its tragedy.
I said it’s mostly free of white savior nonsense, but there’s a moment which sticks in my craw where someone relays a theory that the Doi, K’miri, and Bazhir are descended from one race. The Doi are shown precisely long enough to tell fortunes (helping Alanna in the quest), the only examples we have of the K’miri are of them as body-servants to royalty of another ethnicity, and the Bazhir are being subsumed into Tortall (refer back to book three). It feels like a way to make all the semi-nomadic (or fully nomadic) peoples in the whole quartet all actually be one group, which definitely feels squicky. Maybe in this setting it is correct and it’s actually a cool fact! But it’s presented as a theory and completely doesn’t matter to the conversation in which it occurs.
I like most of this and it’s a solid end to the quartet.
