books: shalador's lady by anne bishop

I've been meaning to do a review of this one, because holy shit, this was awesome. Review for the prequel, The Shadow Queen, is here.



Required reading; you will need to know the universe and have read the first book to get everything out of this, which makes this my favorite book ever in terms of the depths we get of Blood society, non-superpowered queens, and landens.

Things that are new to me: landens can hear the Kindred psychically. No one seems to really--notice this? I did in the first book and it comes back in the second where the Kindred talk to the Landens and do work for pay for them. But let me start at the beginning.

Kermilla, the queen who displaced Cassidy in her home village and took her Circle comes to visit and Theran falls for her like the idiot he is. Ranon, who is literally the most awesome Warlord Prince ever, convinces her not to run away but takes her to Shalador, where earlier she nearly killed herself giving blood to the land, in a ritual called the Queen's Gift, to show how she is totes worthy of being a Territory Queen. Oh Cassidy, your awesome and insecurity are so sweet and I love you.

The rest of the First Circle, excluding Theran, go to join her, and we get to watch Cassidy and the First Circle take the idea of it takes a village to amazing literal heights.

This is, bar none, some of the best territory and world building I've read, as Cassidy, with the support of her First Circle, especially Theran and Grey, shows off what a queen can do when she's given free rein and determination. They start in a tiny half-abandoned village, adding landens from Greyhaven when Kermilla and Theran's actions scare them and they no longer feel they have Cassidy's protection--and that's all I'm going to say about the major plotlines, but it's a seriously fantastic look at Blood society from the ground up and how they build territories. The Kindred feature, we see Karla, Surreal, and there's a meeting of Jaenelle's First Circle which is fascinating to watch as well, and it's nice to see them again.

Cassidy is amazing--again, not being a superpowered queen, she can't fingersnap or overawe with power, which it never even occurs to her to do. She does everything as a well-trained and Protocol-taught queen, giving sensible commands, using her First Circle brilliantly, and inspiring the people around her to become her people by dint of hard work and sheer personality. She's a working queen in all ways, firm and sympathetic and stubborn and strong, especially in her attitude toward the landens, which I was thrilled to see brought in as partners and friends of both the human and Kindred Blood. Her confidence and certainty and her ability to get other people inspired to pitch in and do more than they think they can is kind of amazing. I can see why in the first book Jaenelle thought Cassidy was the best for this job, and what Saetan meant in the third Black Jewels book about a Queen's power not necessarily residing in her jewels; in this, power isn't a factor for these people. What they need is someone who is steeped in Protocol, ruthlessly ethical, intensely pragmatic, a workaholic, and utterly devoted to the people she rules. Interestingly, this may be also an example of where a lot of power would be counterproductive in the long run; Cassidy has to utilize her First Circle and other people a lot more than Jaenelle would have had to and build strong personal bonds of not only trust but protectiveness, and acting for her since she doesn't have a darker jewel is better training for all of them than her being able to finger-snap it. It's also in the short and long run an excellent court for training Blood in both the basics of Protocol and the finer points of a working court, where the expectation is everyone, no matter their caste or rank, is expected to work at anything that needs doing. She's going to build a really amazing Territory out of the people she's training to become the new generation of leaders.

Grey is incredible in his evolution that started in the first book and continues here, as a Warlord Prince, Cassidy's lover, and unsurprisingly, Ranon's best friend. Working hand in glove with Ranon, who is also incredible here, they help direct and build the Territory under Cassidy's guidance.

Ranon is wonderful. I would say more, but knowing how long he's been the unofficial Warlord Prince of Shalador and how much he's already held by Protocol he didn't even know but followed is awesome. Shira is incredible, and there's a new young queen in training with them that adds more interesting tertiary characters.

There is also naked dancing, in case that might inspire anyone. Naked dancing to inspire women to have sex with them. I seriously love Shalador traditions.

It has one huge FUCK YEAH moment which you will know when you see it, because I jumped up and went FUCK YEAH CASSIDY and was totally not ashamed at how my sister stared at me. And some smaller fuck-yeah moments as well. The entire book is built on hope for the future, and you can feel it in every word as they build toward something new and amazing and wanted so badly.

To me, this is the best of the books, but it really does need the background of The Black Jewels and earlier books since this delves a lot more deeply into the societies and assumes a lot of pre-knowledge, but for a reader of the books, it's simply amazing to get more than just hints on how everything works.



This is a little jumbled, but honestly, I've read it several times and enjoyed it more each time. Cassidy is probably my favorite queen so far by sheer personality and an incredible work ethic and showing how the most important thing about a Queen isn't her power, but her ability to lead by example, to put the interests of her people before herself, and have the ability not only to know what to do and how to do it, but to know how to inspire her people to want to do those things.

Totally a must read.

Comments

[majoline]

I was worried this book would suck after reading that trilogy of short stories. Now I will go pick this up and be glad that I was wrong!

[seperis]

The Shadow Queen and Shalador's Lady duo are, to me, the best of the series since the writer assumes teh readers already have context for the universe and we're not reviewing the entire history every time. Plus, Cassidy is a light jewel queen and man, she's amazing.

[majoline]

Sweet! I love me some strong women.

[scy]

I haven't been able to pick up new books late *glares at school* but this is DEFINITELY on my list. *bounces* I love detailed world building and am interested to see a non all powerful queen at work. I think that sometimes being all powerful is considered to be most important, but other traits are important too.

[seperis]

YES THIS. The power is, in this case, the very least important part of her, and I"m not sure an all-powerful queen could do what she did.

[scy]

*nods*

I have been getting tired of books where the heroine steadily gains ability until she is unrealistically powerful. Why can't she have abilities and be SMART on top of that?

[seperis]

I forgive Jaenelle for it, because I really think the author really did know her Mary Sues and built the story about the fact Jaenelle was supposed to be and I like how the entire point of the story was that the Realms were so fucked up they had to literally dream up a Mary Sue to fix everything.

[scy]

Yeah, I was thinking back on LKH? Before I stopped reading out of sheer horror. But with Jaenelle, it made sense.

[seperis]

Oh God. *SHUDDERS* That was so disappointing.

[scy]

It made me so SAD, because the first few books were GOOD, and then it all...went so so wrong. Like fruit. Or...something else that goes rotten when you least expect it.

[greenet]

I agree with all of that, and would like to add that Vae and her entire family is awesome and Darkmist is hardcore, and if anyone can make Theran be less of an ass, it's them. Maybe. Theran is kind of a lot of an ass.

[seperis]

Oh my GOD THE SCELTIE CLAN. YES. Darkmist == best kill ever.

[druidspell]

I NEED THIS BOOK IN MY LIFE *YESTERDAY*. OMG, I love this series so much--I lost my last job in part because of being late for like, 5 consecutive days; I couldn't help it, okay, I was reading The Shadow Queen in the bookstore next door while I waited for the store to open, how the hell was I supposed to just PUT IT DOWN when it was time for me to leave for work?!

[concinnity]

Whee! I just ordered the first book in the series. I love book rec posts!

[beck_liz]

Oooh, thanks for this. I enjoyed the previous book a lot, and might not have found out about this new one for quite some time otherwise.

[cleverpoison.livejournal.com]

Yeeeeeees. I really enjoyed this book and it was so great to see someone in this world succeeding on their merits, on their own hard work, as opposed to having a ton of power.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*nod* I do think that a dark jeweled queen might not have succeeded or not as well. Cassidy's relatively low power doesn't make her a figure of awe and fear off the bat for her Circle or for anyone, and she's a good example of no matter what your power level, know how to use what you have and you're still valuable for it. Plus, her relatively lower power means she has to use her power carefully and wisely and that's a good example for those around her on how to build good working skills and not depend on jewel power.

[jamethiel]

I LOVED this book. I love Cassidy as well, and I also love how they didn't demonise Kermilla. She's spoilt and careless and completely unempathetic and selfish but they do make the point of saying that she is that way because she's been privileged. And they do something about it at the end.

I also love the dance between Kermilla and Cassidy--darker jewels and caste interacting with position. That was fascinating.

Also, much less rape-y than some of the other books, and therefore far less (at least for me) triggery

[othercat.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed both books, for pretty much all of the reasons you mention. There was a lot of good world building details and I basically fell in love with Cassidy. ^_^

I really liked that the landen are more three dimensional in these two books.

[graceandfire.livejournal.com]

The Cassidy books are by far my favorite. I enjoyed then so much I went back and re-read them both and then went back and re-read the Jaenelle books Which I did enjoy re-reading but I already know it's the Cassidy books I'll be revisiting time and again. Ranon and Gray. They are the best, most adorably scary warlords ever. And Theran...is so stupid but the author does a good job of giving just enough glints of decency amongst his utter moronic-ness that you don't (quite) wish that he would die a painful death *cough*

And Cassidy is the most kick-ass awesome every woman Queen ever.

[windbringer1.livejournal.com]

I read it when it came out--like, I had joyfully preordered it and then *forgotten* and it showed up like the best present EVER--and then I read it again. And again. And then I bought the audiobook so I could read it and knit at the same time.

Cassie is my fave. Also the part where they take over what remains of Dena Nehele without really meaning to RULES. And the Scelties. And Theran having to eat crow, because I never liked him.

And all the FUCKYEAH moments.

Yes.

It seems like we're set up for a third one. This has me excited.

[chancecraz101.livejournal.com]

I definitely appreciate the introduction of characters who are asses but not EVIL!! If the one complaint I had about the series up to this point was that were no shades of gray. You were on the "good" side or the "evil" and no motivation was given. Theron was a huge flaming ass - but at least you understood why! As to opposed to Luthivan who I seriously wanted to shake and scream "What the hell woman?" at her actions. I mean seriously what was she thinking?

That being said, without to many spoilers, the queen who Theron ends up serving made me laugh out loud remorselessly. Janelle appreciates a good comeuppance. And the glimpses of the secondary characters of Janelle's court tickled me pink. As well as Surreal deciding what she was going to do with her life. Damn right he's going to pay her outrageously. She's worth every penny.