A sequel to _Kushiel's Dart_, wherein Phèdre attempts to find out what happened to the beautiful traitress Melisande Shahrizai. The search brings her to the republic of La Serenissima, to the terrible prison island of La Dolorosa, to the archipelagoes of Illyria, and to the brink of madness and death...

The book starts off well, but a little more than 200 pages in I got stuck for over a month. For nearly a hundred pages, the only thing that really happened was a lot of scheming in Serenissiman politics, a young Serenissiman (one-quarter D'Angeline) nobleman unsuccessfully wooing Phèdre, and Phèdre and Joscelin quarrelling, which bored me stiff in the long run and almost killed my desire to finish the bloody thing.

Once I got through that part, the pace picked up again, and it took me only a few days to finish the rest. Overall, I'm not too displeased, but those 100-ish pages were almost too much by being too little, as it were. ( )

The Queen of Terre D'Ange, Ysandre de la Courcel, once again is in need of the services of the lands most herioc courtesan, Phedre no Delauney de Montreve. This time Phedre and Joscelin must travel to La Serenissima, where the game of political intrigue, while played with less finesse than in Terre D'Ange, is still played with ferocity. There Phedre must flush out the latest conspiracy against her queen, while ensuring that her own life remains in the balance. ( )

The second installment in the Kushiel's Legacy series continues the high quality and gripping qualities of the first. The world gets a bit larger here, and Carey adds several new cutures to her fascinating alternate history. The intricacy and detail is astounding -- you really get the sense that the world could have turned out this way, given the alterations to history she makes several centuries before the story's timeline. Added to that is Phedre's increasing awareness of her role in the universe and no end of romantic entanglements. A truly brilliant novel.

(And Ysandre's climactic scene -- but that would be telling! -- is still my favourite part of the entire series). ( )

Kushiel's Chosen has all of the attractive elements found in Kushiel's Dart, wonderful storytelling, attractive settings, complex politics, and fascinating characters and lots of adventures. While it maintains a slower pace than 'Kushiel's Dart', in the end it does not disappoint, in spite of the perhaps too frequent episodes of digging up past thoughts and deeds. The teasing familiarity of the "real world" past is nicely mixed with the fantasy element. The plot twists, and reality spins. It is not easy to deliver successful story telling in the first person, but Carey makes it look like a breeze.
Phedre ne Delauney, the courtesan/masochist/spy heroine of the superb "Kushiel's Dart" is back. This time, Carey treats us to her version of Italy, Greece and Crete, complete with her signature and lavish attention to detail. The descriptions are detailed and allow the reader to really see the characters, their homelands, and their cultures. Phedre finds herself enmeshed in a plot in La Serenissima (Venice), hatched by her old enemy Melisande de la Courcel, which threatens both the local leadership and her own homeland. To defeat, it she will have to survive being captured by pirates, thrown in prison, and even the desertion of her beloved Joscelin.
Phedre has learned a lot from her previous adventures and has matured quite a bit but I found myself wishing that she and Joscelin would just throw away their differences and make up. The story thread around Kazan and the pirates was well written; and Phedre’s Boys were fabulous. I know part of the attraction of this tale is the realism – in that not everything has a happy ending. Nonetheless, I was devastated at the demise of Fortun and Remy. Ysandre becomes a more rounded person throughout this tale, and she will bear watching. I struggle a little to understand Phedre’s relationship with Melisande, but I am prepared to simply accept it. I wanted to know more about Hyacinth’s fate, but I have a feeling that this is what the final novel in the trilogy will be about.
Jacqueline Carey is an original and excellent writer. Her stories are compelling and her characters are engaging and she has a great talent for portraying the world of politics, cultures, and intrigue.
I put down this book and immediately picked up the final instalment in the trilogy. ( )

As a second book in a trilogy, this book seems to suffer from the middle book blues. It does not seem to flow as well as Kushiel's Dart, the middle of the book itself just dragged along. However, the beginning and the ending more then make up for this. The ending brought a tear to my eye, something that NEVER happens, (I am not an emotional person), while making me want to cheer at the same time.

Full Review Here: ( )