Sword Catcher

**Possible spoilers ahead**
Cassandra Clare is one of my favorite authors and Sword Catcher sets up another epic world with detailed descriptions and magical world building where the people are separated not only by their social class but also their heritage. The characters are assigned colors
The setting of Castellane seemed to be a type of Medieval 17th century city with Indian architectural influences as well as Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian cultures like China and Thailand.
The people in the city dress in the colors of their heritage. The people of Castellane wear red and gold. The Castellane royals wear steel blue (Conor and Kel). The Queen, Lilibet Aurelian, once the princess of Marakand, wears Blue and Green, the colors of show more her Orosa heritage. Conor's sister, Antonetta, however, wears Scarlet Silk and dark red ribbons, symbolizing her nonconformity. In stark contrast to Antonetta's ability to rebel, the Ashkar people are required to wear Blue and Gray which symbolizes the laws placed upon the people.
It is dual-POV ( Kel & Lin).
Our male protagonist is an orphan child, Kel, who appears similar to our Castellaine Prince Conor. He's swiftly pulled out of the Orfelinat (orphanage), leaving his best friend, Cal, to become Prince Conor's body double, his "Sword Catcher," if you will. He's given a magical amulet upon his arrival to allow him to emulate Prince Conor hiding his true identity from those who do not know Conor.
The story quickly jumps to their adulthood when Kel protects the heir from becoming a tragedy of Catellane's criminal underground, which seems to be controlled by the esoteric Ragpicker King, multiple times.
Our female protagonist Lin, is an Ashkar (symbolic of Ashkenazi Jews in the story) woman who practices the healing art of her people, combining her unknown magic abilities with her knowledge of more modern medicine and remedies to aid the people. Laws prevent women from attending the healer's school so all Lin knows, she's learned from books she acquired and trial-&-error, and she's the best!
A lot happens and nothing happens, until the very end, at the same time. It seemed more like a world-building-info-dump, but because it's a world built by Cassandra Clare, I'm here for it! I'll give her the benefit of the doubt, and see where this world continues to take me.

Note: Just like in The Mortal Instruments, relationships aren't all that they seem.

4☆
(I was tempted to 3☆ and DNF at multiple points, but like I said... benefit of the doubt.)

0🌶
There is no spice in this book. There is a little kiss here or there and mentions of the MMCs attending to their favorite special lady, but nothing explicit on the page. So take that as you will. It's still categorized as an adult book by the author, and so I'm assuming that will change in the future as Clare defines most of the character's sexuality throughout the story. show less

Cassandra Clare has been writing young adult fantasy for almost twenty years. Although its main plotline about an orphan hired to impersonate a prince in dangerous situations is a variation on Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper, Sword Catcher is Clare’s first adult fantasy novel. The subsidiary plot features a woman from an isolated magic-using ethnic group struggling to gain respect for her skill as a physician. The story owes much to Jewish folklore. Blend in some court intrigue and a dollop of romance, and six hundred pages later, sadly, all these tasty ingredients are still up in the air.

An excellent first installment in a promising series. Here we have the story of Kel, taken from an orphanage as a young boy and installed as the Sword Catcher (bodyguard) to the Crown Prince of Castellane. Concurrently, we have the story of Lin, a young woman interested in the healing properties of magic, a forbidden practice.

The world-building is absolutely phenomenal. I was never bored. That being said, the first part of the book was the slowest. Once I hit the 200-page mark, the story was off and running, and me along with it. This is a story of love and politics and intrigue. The last 100 pages absolutely held my attention, and I couldn't put it down.

I'm definitely looking forward to the next book in the series.

Much of this book I actually liked - interesting world building, a few interesting characters. Not a fan of the obligatory sort-of-romance, but what can you do, apparently fantasy can no longer stand on its own without at least some of that. I really really disliked how the book basically ended mid-sentence. This is not a rounded part of a trilogy, these are the first chapters of a bigger book. I sincerely detest manipulative shit like that, and I don’t like the book enough to get over it and buy the next one anyway.

This is the first in a new fantasy series that takes place in the city-state of Castellane, ruled by the House of Aurelian in the part of the city known as Marivent.

King Markus and Queen Lilibet are in the process of arranging a politically expedient marriage for Prince Conor, age 23, in spite of his firm opposition to the idea.

Kellian Saran, called Kel, is currently the one who shares Conor’s bedroom. He has since Kel was brought to the palace at age 10 to become the “Sword Catcher” —Conor’s body double to stand in for the prince whenever danger is perceived. Others have been told Kel is Kel Anjuman, the Prince’s cousin. And when Kel poses as Conor he is made to look exactly like him, using Ashkari talismans.

The Ashkari show more are a people without a homeland, who are kept inside the walls of ghettos in every place they abide, in areas called Saults. They are locked in at night, restrict­ed in the kind of work they are per­mit­ted, and must wear certain identifying clothes by law. But they are now the sole users of magic, which has made them hated and envied in equal measure.

What saved them from people’s wrath was the fact that the throne always kept an Ashkar as Counselor, since Ashkar had their own rulers and thus were considered to be objective. Mayesh Bensimon, the current King’s Counselor explained to his granddaughter Lin:

“Because there is always an Ashkar close to the throne, the King is forced to look upon us and remember we are human beings. The task I perform protects us all. Not only do I speak for our people, but I am a mirror. I reflect the humanity of all our people to the highest seat in Castellane.”

Lin, also 23 and a skilled physician, is the other main protagonist in this story.

Mayesh respects his daughter’s skills, even though she, as a female, is generally denied recognition. When Kel is severely injured, Mayesh summons Lin, who saves him. She then saves Conor from wounds, and moreover manages to ensure he has no scores. Lin used more than Ashkari magic, characterized by minor enchantments. Unknowingly, she tapped into the magic of Source-Stones, forbidden magic once common before the Sundering.

In the far past, there were sorcerer kings and queens who used these Source-Stones to amass and yield power. The Sorcerer-King Suleman began to covet more and more, and set out to take over the kingdom of the Sorcerer-Queen Adassa. She fell in love with him, but would not marry him and give up her kingdom of Aram to him. Suleman, enraged, attacked Aram, and Adassa used all of the power of her Source-Stone to defeat him. This caused the Sundering of almost all magic from the world. But Adassa saved for her people, the Ashkari, the magic of gematry, so they could make their amulets and talismans. The Ashkari had to flee, however, and Adassa herself was changed into a deity, according to Ashkari mythology. She was seen as a redeemer, someone who would one day return in the form of an Ashkari girl.

The Festival of the Goddess Adassa, called the Tevath, was the most important holiday of the year in the Sault. The Ashkar gathered in the Kathot, where their leader, the Maharam, would recite the story of the Goddess, and of lost Aram. Traditionally, at the end of each ceremony, the Maharam called up each girl one by one, and asked if she were the returned goddess.

As the story begins, a number of byzantine machinations are unfolding in Marivent. Clare explains:

“Most people lived all their lives in Castellane, with Marivent shimmering above them like a star, knowing they would never enter its gates. Knowing that beyond those gates lay a sort of a magic, of a type that had not been lost in the Sundering. The magic of power, of glamour and riches, luxury and influence. The destinies of nations turned on House Aurelian’s whim. That was itself a kind of sorcery.”

But like the sorcery that almost destroyed the world with the Sundering, the sorcery of Marivant has turned malevolent as well. The various guilds are plotting against each other, and someone is plotting against the House Aurelian.

Kel and Lin are each separately contacted by the the mysterious Ragpicker King, one of the criminal rulers of Castellane’s underworld, who is the somewhat benevolent counterpart of another criminal king, Prosper Beck. Conor has gotten involved with Beck.

The Ragpicker King, named Andreyen, wanted Kel to be his eyes and ears in Marivent. He said in return he could help Kel protect Conor, and maybe save the kingdom as well.

Andreyen was interested in Lin when he found out she had acquired a source-stone, which she had thought was just an interesting piece of quartz. Andreyen asked Lin to learn how to use the magic of the stone. He said he sought a hand that would wield the source stone in his service. In return, he offered her the use of a laboratory and medical resource material, something she was denied in the Sault, being a woman. Here was a chance to find a way to save her dying best friend, Miriam. He also gave her some invaluable pages from the works of the scholar Qasmuna, who had seen magic leave the world, could describe how it worked, and sought a way to bring it back. Most copies of the book were destroyed in the purge after the Sundering. He encouraged Lin to try to find the rest of the book.

Conor was in trouble for several reasons. Most importantly, he owed Prosper Beck 10,000 crowns. Beck, at the behest of some unknown power in Marivent, had bought up Conor’s debt from all over the kingdom, and was demanding payment. Thus Connor made a secret agreement to marry the princess of nearby Sarthe for a prepaid dowry of 10,000 crowns. The Sarthians tricked him however, and sent the child princess Luisa instead of the marriage-age Princess Aimada. The Castellanes were enraged.

All the plotting and simmering resentments were coming to a boil, and it was only a matter of time until the blood-spilling foretold by the stars would come to pass.

Evaluation: This book is long but, improbably, a page-turner with clever and interesting world-building. I should note there are a number of possible romances interweaved through the saga. The story is complex however, which is why I have given a detailed review, in the hope that when the next installment comes out, I will have enough to go on to help me remember what is important. show less

This book is the first in an epic fantasy series described as two outcasts (Kel and Lin) who find themselves "caught in a web of forbidden love, dangerous magic and dark secrets". The world-building and political system is fantastic (it takes a while to get the myriad of kingdoms and nobles and whatnot straight in your head) and the cast of characters is interesting. I’m particularly intrigued by the Ragpicker King. This was my first Cassandra Clare read - and I will definitely be picking up the next book in this series to see what happens next

Thank you, Pan Macmillan South Africa, for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

This novel is far from the shadow hunter world. The world-building is amazingly done, and the mythology is richly created to fit this magnificent world. This novel is aimed at adults, but it reads like Young Adult.

The plot was intriguing, and I couldn't put it down - the pages turned beneath my fingers. There is sexual content, yet it verges on zero to vanilla. Characters show growth, even though I found some characters irritating - and too childish.

This was still a very good novel and I recommend it highly to Cassy fans.