Kushiel’s Chosen

Jacqueline Carey 2002 Buy from Amazon.com

This book continues on from Kushiel’s Dart. Phedre is now a peer of the realm, Comtesse Phedre no Delauney de Montreve, and she returns to Namaah’s Service to try and discover the whereabouts of Melisande Shahrizai. After being declared a traitor, Melisande mysteriously vanished the night before her execution and the trail eventually leads Phedre to La Serenissima, and the Stregazza family.

The relationship between Josceline and Phedre has been strained to breaking point by her return to Namaah’s Service and he becomes involved with the local Yeshuites, teaching them to fight in the Cassline style and leaving Phedre for days at a time. When Phedre is captured by Melisande, she is imprisoned in La Dolorossa but escapes and is rescued from the sea by the Illyrian pirate Kazan Atribades.

Eventually Phedre makes her way back to La Serenissima and is reunited with Josceline in time to thwart Melissande’s plans, but Melissande’s infant son Imriel, Prince of the Blood, has vanished.

Once again Phedre travels to foreign lands in her quest and the places she visits are given thorough and vivd descriptions. La Serenissima’s canals and gondolas, its people and their customs are all shown in the course of the story and one can almost feel the history of the city coming off the page. As always, Phedre’s experiences in the city carry the scenery so fluidly that it would be impossible to separate her experiences from her environment.

Phedre’s interactions with Melissande and Josceline are poignant and painful. Her relationship with Josceline becomes complex and tangled as he tries to reconcile his feelings about her work and his vows. When Phedre interacts with Melissande it is faught with fear, desire, pain, love and fierce hatred. The tie between Kushiel’s Chosen and his most dangerous Scion is unbreakable, but Phedre fights her own desires to find freedom.

This was a very different novel to Kushiel’s Dart in some ways, in the last novel Phedre spends a great deal of time cold in the midst of snow and ice. She travels through two barbarian lands and meets the people who live and rule there. In this novel she travels to Caerdicca Unitas, ancient in culture and learning, and becomes involved in the schemes and intrigues of the ruling class.

Yet it is also very similar. Phedre’s strengths are not traditional ones, and her tactics are not conventional. She proves again that those who yield are not weak, and the arts of covertcy are more powerful than crude force.

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