La Dame de Shalador (Les Joyaux Noirs, #8) par Anne Bishop

C’est en grande partie la suite d’un livre que j’avais lu précédemment : La reine de l’ombre nous avons suivi le voyage de Lady Cassidy à Dene Nehele à Terrille pour devenir la reine d’une nation essayant désespérément de restaurer les anciennes méthodes. J’ai toujours adoré ce livre, mais quand j’ai entendu qu’il y avait une suite, j’étais ambivalente. je ne toujours amour Anne Évêque ‘écris, donc je n’étais pas ‘omg je dois le lire!’ et je me sentais comme La reine de l’ombre était le parfait

C’est en grande partie la suite d’un livre que j’avais lu précédemment : La reine de l’ombre nous avons suivi le voyage de Lady Cassidy à Dene Nehele à Terrille pour devenir la reine d’une nation essayant désespérément de restaurer les anciennes méthodes. J’ai toujours adoré ce livre, mais quand j’ai entendu qu’il y avait une suite, j’étais ambivalente. je ne toujours amour Anne Évêque ‘écris, donc je n’étais pas ‘omg je dois le lire!’ et je me sentais comme La reine de l’ombre était l’exemple parfait d’une histoire complète, donc je ne voyais aucune raison pour laquelle cela devait continuer.

Cependant, pour l’avoir vu sur une étagère dans un magasin alors que j’étais juste dans le bon état d’esprit pour ce style d’écriture d’auteur, il m’est revenu à la maison et je l’ai vraiment, vraiment apprécié.

Cette critique n’est vraiment pas pertinente pour quiconque n’a pas lu beaucoup de Anne Évêque déjà, vous ne pouvez pas accéder à un livre ultérieur avec succès. Bien que ce ne soient plus que des spoilers à partir de maintenant, je veux d’abord dire à quiconque, comme moi, n’était pas sûr de savoir s’il avait besoin de lire ce livre; à vous je dis, oui, vous le faites presque certainement. Le voyage de Lady Cassidy dans ce livre est passionnant et satisfaisant. Le lecteur obtient la fermeture sur certaines choses, la justification des gens qu’il aime et la chute des méchants. C’est l’accomplissement d’un souhait, bien sûr, mais c’est l’accomplissement d’un souhait du type le plus agréable. En plus c’est bien écrit ! Au pire, certains de ces travaux d’auteurs peuvent être bâclés, trop sentimentaux et indulgents envers eux-mêmes. Ce livre est bien écrit, bien pensé et présente quelques-uns des défauts qui PEUVENT parfois se glisser dans ce travail d’auteurs très expérimentés.

Maintenant, passons au (voir spoiler)[
We all wanted, while reading The Shadow Queen to see what Lady Cassidy could do if she really let loose didn’t we? That scene toward the end where she defends the Landens from abusive Blood – that was the fire and the conviction in her we really wanted to see come out. That is the fire and capacity that Cassidy gets to let out a little more in this book. The thing that really frustrated her and stopped her from achieving stuff was always, Theran, so in this book when Cassidy walks out on him and the precious Greyhaven estate, things really start to happen.

At the end of the last book, Theran was trying not to be a dick, but I think we all knew how well that was going to work. This book starts a mere few weeks after the last one ends, where Cassidy goes on progress to the Shalador territories, that we were all so interested in. Theran is still trying, then Kermilla, the Queen that Cassidy had a history with turns up and Theran reverts to being a dick.

And then the real Territory building starts happening!

I really, really enjoyed this light easy book showing how a Queen can come into her own, a woman start to feel confident of her own power. As with all Anne Bishop books, there is the early trauma and misery to overcome (always, but ALWAYS with the trauma). There is that warm and fluffy feeling of reading a character being fully and unconditionally supported by her ‘males’ and finding her place.

One thing I really enjoyed in this one was that the author tried a bit harder to make it it’s own story, instead of being -almost- fan fiction for the original Black Jewels trilogy. The everlasting SaDiablo clan of Kaleer were a bit more in the background, we still saw them all, but they were a smaller part of the plot. Thank goodness. It is beyond time for the author to move past that deus ex machina.

And, we have achieved a milestone! I read this whole book by Anne Bishop without once having to suppress the gag response: Not once in this novel do we have to read how warlord princes are « ….passionately violent and violently passionate… » oh the relief.

Now, if only Anne could get over how adorkable the Scelties are. I like the idea of animals being Blood, I like dogs. I liked Ladvarian in the original trilogy. But step away from that addiction Anne, step away….

I could deal with Vae in The Shadow Queen, she was ok. She was the Jar Jar Binks, comic relief of a book that did not really need that much comic relief. But ok. In this book instead of just Vae, now we have… I think it is thirteen of them. Too much. Too annoying.

While reading about the ever-present scelties, I more fully noticed something about Anne Bishop‘s writing that had previously discomforted me only slightly, but now this discomfort became dominant. She has a habit of depreciating dominant classes. Now, that can work very well in her stories, and it is something like knocking down tall poppies, which is virtually an Australian sport. For example, ‘males’ are always being depreciated when compared with females (even at times by other males) and, honestly, while I don’t mind a bit of it, since we come from a society of gender inequality, where females need building up a little – after a while it gets too much. If you constantly knock a gender; that is sexist no matter which gender it is being knocked. I don’t like sexism of any sort, it makes me uncomfortable.

In this book, the gender depreciation is definitely toned down, males and females working together makes Lady Cassidy’s court an interesting place and I loved how many people gathered around her and how strongly and organically the court formed. We never really saw the forming of any other court in The Black Jewels so this was really interesting.

But, back to depreciation; In this book, human’s are apparently infinitely less capable, more dumb and generally inferior to all Scelties, that it the take home message of the last third of the book. They are everywhere, they are gushingly amazing. If you found Vae in the last book too annoying for words (instead of just a minor irritation) consider carefully whether you can face a whole village full of ever present, apparently omniscient, Scelties. (hide spoiler)]