J. Kathleen Cheney

I received a copy of this book from the author. My review states my unbiased reaction.

The Golden City is the sort of book that would make me go, "OOOH! WANT!" It hits on several of my sweet spots: historical fiction, a unique setting (1902 Portugal), magic, and selkies. The latter is huge for me. I love selkies and am delighted when I find shorts stories and novels that utilize them well. (For those who aren't familiar with selkies, they are fairy creatures of sea who can slip off their pelt show more to take on human form.)

This novel alternates between two perspectives: Oriana Paredes, a sereia, who has been sent from her sea people to spy on the Golden City; and Duilio Ferreira, a police consultant with his own genetic roots in the sea. Both feel like real, complicated people. I'm normally drawn to heroines the most, but there's something especially appealing about Duilio. He's intelligent and kind, and this even comes across in a scene that could have easily turned me off of the book entirely: he intrudes on Oriana in her bath to verify that she is indeed a sereia. That could have been all sorts of creepy, but Cheney handles it with a deft hand.

The plot is fast and fun as it develops historical Portugal with a magical twist. Magic is shown through selkies, sereia, and various human gifts such as foresight, and the villains, of course, have dark powers of their own. Cheney mentions otter-folk; they didn't have a role in this book, but I love otters and I'm curious about what she'll do with them in future books. The balance in viewpoints reminded me a great deal of Delia's Shadow by Jaime Lee Moyer, another favorite read of this year. Both books have two narrators, a police investigator and a woman with special skills, and they work together within a historical setting to solve serial killings. I don't think this similarity is a bad thing, but I couldn't help but notice as I read and enjoyed the book.

The set-up for the ending is very well done here. I hoped the bad guy would be one person, it ended up being another, and Oriana plays a pivotal role in capturing him that I couldn't foresee at all. The last 100 pages were so intense that it drove me bonkers when I had to set down the book for the night.

Probably the biggest negative is that there are a lot of characters to keep track of. Family houses, servants, investigators good and bad, Duilio's large family--sometimes I was a bit confused about who was who.

In all, this was a delightful read that lived up to all my hopes. show less

The Golden City is a fantastic fantasy set in a alternative early 1900s Porto, Portugal, where people can have magical powers and selkies and sirens (known as sereia) live in hiding. Because for the last 20 years, non-humans have been banned from the Golden City on pain of death because the Prince believes that they are going to kill him. That doesn't mean that they aren't there though. Oriana is an agent for the Sereian government posing as the paid companion to a young socialite. But then, show more just as her charge is about to elope, they are kidnapped and left for dead in part of mysterious underwater art project known as the city under the sea that replicates one of the best neighborhoods of the city under the waives. Having gills, Oriana is able to escape, but Isabel, her only friend in this hostile environment drowns unleashing a kind of magic Oriana has never seen before. She had come to the Golden City to somehow avenge her sister's murder, so Isabel's death becomes just one thing Oriana has to fix in order to find peace. But now she is friendless, homeless, and rapidly becoming penniless, and justice is seeming ever more unlikely.

Enter Duilio, a young Portuguese man of leisure, who spends his time helping with police investigations while trying to figure out what happened to his mother's most prized possession. A seer, he knows Oriana is important and that something is wrong with the city under the sea. Together, the two team up to solve the mystery, but someone with a lot of power does not want their quest to succeed, and Oriana's superiors are putting pressure on her to return to the Islands. But these two are not going to quit until they get to the bottom of things.

I love this book. I love, love, love, love this book. Oriana is the best kind of strong heroine, flawed but determined. Nothing in her life has gone right since her mother died when she was twelve and her father was exiled for sedition four years later. But no matter how desperate her circumstances or hopeless she felt, she never let it get her down. And Duilio is her perfect foil, patient and understanding where she is impatience and temper. Together they make a great team. Every time I read it I discover something new to like. Wonderful characterizations and excellent world building, make you feel like there really is a place in Portugal where magical creatures clandestinely walk the streets and magic has the potential to change the world. Highly recommended to anyone who likes historical fantasy, strong female leads, or mysteries with a touch of magic. show less

Culture vs. Story

What I took from these stories, most of all, was how strongly the culture of the pieces came over in such a short space of time. That's not to say that I did not enjoy the stories, because I did, just that the culture was the strongest drawn of the features of each story.

Of the two stories, I felt that the second - Early Winter, Near Jenli Village - lent itself more easily to being a short story, while the story that gave the collection its name, (The Dragon's Child), would show more have been far better if written as a full length novel, or even a novella. There were just so many elements that could, and perhaps should have been expanded upon and as a reader one is left with so many questions, even though the story itself is told, that a degree of disappointment seems inevitable. I felt I wanted the story told again in far more detail.

As companion stories, however, as unlikely as it might seem that a fantasy about dragons and a hauntingly beautiful Chinese ghost story might go together, the two worked well in a single volume. I would be interested in reading other short stories by Cheney, but would also like to read a full length novel by this author. show less

I enjoyed this a great deal. Set in a highly mannered alterni-Portugal of the very early twentieth century, it has all sorts of wonderful elements: mermaids (well, sirens and selkies and even a rusalka who I liked the most) and dastardly plots that need foiling (like being trapped in the library with an unmarried gentleman!) and an absolutely smashing romance between the two leads, wherein they form a solid bond of mutual respect that's just dripping with UST, but impeded by constraints that show more are genuinely part of who they are.

There were times when there seemed to be rather too much inconsequential detail cluttering up the page, but in general, I enjoyed the ride a lot, and I'm looking forward to more. show less