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Time of Daughters, Book 1
Sherwood Smith has new novel out, Time of Daughters, in two books. Both are available now from Book View Cafe (ebook only) and Amazon (ebook, paperback, or hardback). I've just finished the first book and found it thoroughly engrossing, a real treat. People who enjoyed the Inda series may especially enjoy this duology, which takes place 100 years later, but I honestly think people who like a dynastically focused story with lots of slow-burn intrigue and character development will love this even if they've never ventured into Sherwood's world before.
The first third features some **highly** dramatic moments, including a massacre incited by ... well maybe I shouldn't say--it was pretty surprising and goes against some common tropes. Arrow Olavayir and his practical-minded (she sleuths through accounts to uncover treachery--a Marlovan Eliot Ness) wife Danet end up on the throne and start trying to weave the kingdom together again. A generous decision in those first days--to raise the bastard son of the murdered original heir as their own--will **obviously** have consequences, and watching the bundle of ambition, jealousy, and self-loathing that is Prince Connar grow is one of the big pleasures of the second two-thirds of the book. He's not very pleasant, but he's intensely loyal to his (adoptive) father and his brother, the crown prince, so while he's susceptible to flattery and manipulable, he's also got some armor against becoming a pawn. What will happen?? I'll have to read the second book to find out.
There's also a wonderful, quirky girl character, Lineas, whom I fell in love with over her appreciation for her first-ever brand-new set of clothes ("She would begin its story, unlike everything she'd always worn, which had stories before they came to her hands: a mended tear here, from when and where? Worn elbows, from doing what?"). My love was sealed when she announced "I love to study and I am very, very normal." Oh sweetie.
There are also several character who have been brought up to live as the opposite sex, and how these characters feel about this (and how others treat them when the secret comes out) is very interesting. And there's a deaf character who's betrothed into the royal family, so everyone busies themselves learning Hand--and that's cool too (and very zeitgeist-y: We've been watching Netflix's The Dragon Prince, and it has a deaf character in it too).
Anyway--I enjoyed Book 1 tremendously.
The first third features some **highly** dramatic moments, including a massacre incited by ... well maybe I shouldn't say--it was pretty surprising and goes against some common tropes. Arrow Olavayir and his practical-minded (she sleuths through accounts to uncover treachery--a Marlovan Eliot Ness) wife Danet end up on the throne and start trying to weave the kingdom together again. A generous decision in those first days--to raise the bastard son of the murdered original heir as their own--will **obviously** have consequences, and watching the bundle of ambition, jealousy, and self-loathing that is Prince Connar grow is one of the big pleasures of the second two-thirds of the book. He's not very pleasant, but he's intensely loyal to his (adoptive) father and his brother, the crown prince, so while he's susceptible to flattery and manipulable, he's also got some armor against becoming a pawn. What will happen?? I'll have to read the second book to find out.
There's also a wonderful, quirky girl character, Lineas, whom I fell in love with over her appreciation for her first-ever brand-new set of clothes ("She would begin its story, unlike everything she'd always worn, which had stories before they came to her hands: a mended tear here, from when and where? Worn elbows, from doing what?"). My love was sealed when she announced "I love to study and I am very, very normal." Oh sweetie.
There are also several character who have been brought up to live as the opposite sex, and how these characters feel about this (and how others treat them when the secret comes out) is very interesting. And there's a deaf character who's betrothed into the royal family, so everyone busies themselves learning Hand--and that's cool too (and very zeitgeist-y: We've been watching Netflix's The Dragon Prince, and it has a deaf character in it too).
Anyway--I enjoyed Book 1 tremendously.