Reviews and Comments

I………

Three and a half stars for enjoying it, but I feel like Anne abandoned plot in favor of the novel-length character sketch after book four. It feels a lot like a pantsed novel—no shade, I myself am a Pantser. The plot feels weak to me and then peters out.

Also, I quite liked Marius in The Vampire Lestat and The Vampire Armand, but this guy is prone to melodramatic snitfits. I didn’t like him as much in this one; I feel like he never gets over being a Roman Patrician who wants everyone to obey him. Also, after several novels where I felt Marius was the adult supervision of the vampire world, I felt let down by his childish arguments with the women in his life. In previous novels I had him pegged as a dom, but this guy? No way he should engage in SSC/RACK. In short, he didn’t feel consistent with the guy we saw in previous novels.

But somehow I still enjoyed this book.

So, I was down to read this as soon as I knew it was historical fiction with Sephardi Jewish elements, like The Pomegranate Gate. It’s an interesting period of history.

(I know that’s Leigh Bardugo’s actual background, by the way. A lot of her recent, non-YA work involves Sephardi characters, like Ninth House.)

I’ve also been reading Bardugo since Six of Crows or thereabouts.

I’m also pretty down to read, well. If you casually peruse my shelves you’ll see “witches and wizards.” I don’t know if that’s what Luzia would call herself, but it’s an interesting magic system—Ladino refranes and music. In other words, is it witchcraft or magically successful Jewish prayer? and is there a difference between those two to the Inquisition?

I’m also intrigued by the romantic subplot with a cursed immortal being. He’s not a vampire, but he’s got the world-weary voice of a man who’s been alive a long time… a VERY long time. My Goodreads shelves are also groaning under the tag “vampires.”

So.

Luzia is a scullion with a talent and ambition. Her aunt is a rich man’s mistress. But we’re in a period of Spain where her Jewish ancestry is a serious liability. Luzia is nominally Catholic, and is shocked when her aunt turns out to be “a Judaizer” even though she has been saying Latin prayers while thinking them in Hebrew, just like her parents taught her, and hiding her Jewish ancestry…

And her aunt’s rich boyfriend thinks he can use her power to gain political advantage.