Synopses & Reviews
Maya Witherspoon had lived most of the first twenty-five years of her life in her native India. As the daughter of a prominent British physician and a Brahmin woman of the highest caste, she had known only luxury. Trained by her father in the medical arts since she was old enough to read, she graduated from the University of Delhi as a Doctor of Medicine by the age of twenty-two. Welcomed into her father’s lucrative practice, she treated many of the wives and daughters of the British military personnel who made up a large percentage of their patients in the colonial India of 1909.
But the science of medicine was not Maya’s only heritage. For Maya’s aristocratic mother Surya, had not just defied her family, friends and religion to marry Maya’s father, she had turned her back on her family’s powerful magical traditions as well. For her mother was a sorceress—a former priestess of the mystical magics fueled by the powerful and fearsome pantheon of Indian gods.
Though Maya felt the stirring of magic in her blood, her mother had repeatedly refused to train her. “I cannot,” she had said, her eyes dark with distress, whenever Maya asked. “Yours is the magic of your father’s blood, not mine….” Surya had never had the chance to explain this enigmatic statement to her daughter, before cholera claimed her life. Yet Maya suspected that something far more sinister than the virulent disease had overcome her powerful mother.
But it was Maya’s father’s death shortly thereafter which confirmed her darkest suspicions. For her father was killed by the bite of a krait, a tiny venomous snake, and in the last hours of her mother’s life, in the seeming delirium of her fever, Surya had repeatedly warned Maya to beware “the serpent’s shadow.” With the sudden loss of her father, Maya knew she must flee the land of her birth or face the same fate as her parents.
In self-imposed exile in London, Maya surrounded herself with every protection possible. All the magic Maya knew had been learned by covertly observing her mother, and by cobbling this knowledge together with the street-magic gleaned from a few genuine fakirs. Her workings were a mixture of instinct, extrapolation, and trial-and-error. Crude, but somewhat effective, her spells let Maya hide her household behind a wall of secrecy in a poorer section of the city. Here, in a small but adequate house she lived with only the most loyal of her mother’s servants, and her mother’s seven unusual “pets”—if you could use such a word for creatures who seemed far more like friends. For Charan, the little monkey, Rajah, the peacock, Mala, the falcon, Sia and Singhe, the mongooses, Rhadi, the parrot, and Nisha, the owl seemed far too sentient to be ordinary animals. Maya knew that these seven unusual and loving companions had been in some way special to her mother, but their secrets were hidden to her, perhaps forever.
In her new home she fought the dual prejudices against her sex and her race to continue in her medical profession. Only her high scholastic abilities and her extreme determination enabled her to meet with any success. She managed to place herself in a minor position at a prestigious hospital while she pursued her own medical passions: helping the poor at a tiny clinic where they welcomed any doctor, and setting up a small, controversial practice which specialized in “female complaints” and offered “absolute discretion.”
But Maya knew that she could not hide forever from the vindictive power which had murdered her parents. She knew in her heart that even a vast ocean couldn’t protect her from “the serpent’s shadow” which had so terrified her mother. Her only hope was to find a way to master her own magic: the magic of her father’s blood. But who...
Review
"Snow White variant set in Edwardian London....A promising start, with plenty of solid period detail and a splash of feminism, but disappointingly developed, with a thin, poorly motivated plot and a showdown that just hangs out to dry." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"The author of the popular Valdemar series turns her hand to historical fantasy in this intriguing and compelling re-creation of England in the waning days of its imperial glory....A good choice for Lackey's large readership as well as fans of period fiction." Library Journal
Review
"This is rather a departure from recent form for Lackey, which her characteristic carefulness, narrative gifts, and attention to detail shape into an altogether superior fantasy." Booklist
Review
Praise for Juliet Marillier and her novels:
“Juliet Marillier is a fine fantasy writer.”—Anne McCaffrey
“An enchanting tale grounded by [Marilliers] compelling protagonists.”—Jacqueline Carey, New York Times bestselling author of Poison Fruit
“A fabulous read, a rich tale that resonates of deepest myth peopled by well-drawn characters who must sort out their personal demons, while unraveling mysteries both brutally human and magical.”—Kristen Britain, New York Times bestselling author of the Green Rider series
“A simply gorgeous story…a tale that will tug at your heart and, like the fable that it draws upon, linger in your head and soul for days afterwards.”—Karen Brooks
“Filled…with beauty, wisdom and wonder—she's one of my all-time favorite authors and I only wish that she would write faster. A new book by Juliet Marillier is always a cause for celebration.”—Kate Forsyth
Synopsis
Award-winning author Juliet Marilliers lavishly detailed”* Blackthorn and Grim series continues as a mysterious creature holds an enchanted and imperiled ancient Ireland in thrall.
Disillusioned healer Blackthorn and her companion, Grim, have settled in Dalriada to wait out the seven years of Blackthorns bond to her fey mentor, hoping to avoid any dire challenges. But trouble has a way of seeking out Blackthorn and Grim.
Lady Geiléis, a noblewoman from the northern border, has asked for the prince of Dalriadas help in expelling a howling creature from an old tower on her landone surrounded by an impenetrable hedge of thorns. Casting a blight over the entire district, and impossible to drive out by ordinary means, it threatens both the safety and the sanity of all who live nearby. With no ready solutions to offer, the prince consults Blackthorn and Grim.
As Blackthorn and Grim begin to put the pieces of this puzzle together, its apparent that a powerful adversary is working behind the scenes. Their quest is about to become a life and death strugglea conflict in which even the closest of friends can find themselves on opposite sides.
*Publishers Weekly
Description
One of the world's best-loved fantasy writers, Mercedes Lackey has delighted readers and critics alike with her enthralling Valdemar novels. Now, she has truly outdone herself-with a magnificent and thrilling adventure that takes the magic of India into the eerie gaslit streets of Victorian London...
About the Author
Juliet Marillier is the author of the Sevenwaters series and Dreamers Pool. She was born in Dunedin, New Zealand, a town with strong Scottish roots. She graduated from the University of Otago with degrees in languages and music, and has had a varied career that includes teaching and performing music as well as working in government agencies. Juliet now lives in a hundred-year-old cottage near the river in Perth, Western Australia, where she writes full-time. She is a member of the druid order OBOD. Juliet shares her home with a small pack of waifs and strays. Her historical fantasy novels and short stories are published internationally and have won a number of awards.