Kushiel's Chosen

Kushiel’s Chosen- Jacqueline Carey

How I found this book: I sort of figured when I got to the end of Kushiel’s Dart and a whole new plot angle started there had to be a sequel running around there somewhere.

Setting: La Serenissima, what is in our world known as Venice. There are also ventures to what in our world is Croatia and Crete (or Illyria and Kriti in the novel). The novel starts two years after the Skaldic wars, but only the day after the proceeding book, Kushiel’s Dart ended.

Main Characters:

Phedre no Delauney, Comtesse de Montreve: Our heroine is back in this latest installment. Phedre is now a peer of the realm, the inheritor of Anafiel Delauney’s title and lands, living a quiet life in Montreve, trying to solve the mystery that imprisons her beloved Hyacinthe. When Melisande Sharhazai lays a challenge before her, Phedre travels to La Serenissima to find out where the greatest traitor that Terre D’Ange has ever known has hidden herself. But as always Melisande has the upper hand and Phedre nearly loses everything she holds dear as she desperately tried to get word to her queen that once again, one closest to her is preparing to betray her.

Joscelin Verreuil: Phedre’s companion perhaps is not as constant as he once believed he could be. Angered by Phedre’s insistence on chasing after Melisande, and jealous of her Service to Naamah, Joscelin is not sure if he is able to accept what life with Phedre would mean for him personally. Believing himself damned for the choices he’s made, he tries to find some sort of answers, even if they can’t reconcile him to what Phedre is. It is only when he’s faced not only with perhaps his greatest failure as a Cassiline Brother as well as perhaps his greatest loss that he is only able to understand what is and isn’t important in his life.

Ti-Phillipe, Remy, and Fortun: Member’s of Phedre’s Boys, and her Chevaliers, they follow Phedre wherever she goes and serve as both her servants and her eyes and ears.

Melisande Sharhazai: Escaped from her fate in the end of Kushiel’s Dart, Melisande is up to her scheming ways once again. She lures Phedre to La Serenissima, but keeps her presence there a mystery. It is only too late that Phedre discovers the truth, and it nearly costs her everything.

Caesare Stregazza, Doge of La Serenissima: The ailing ruler of La Serenissima and head of the Stregazza family, he doesn’t trust his children or the plots around him. Though clearly aged and ill, he hasn’t lost his wits, and asks Phedre to be watchful for him.

Prince Benedicte de la Courcel: The younger brother of King Ganelon de la Courcel, and the great-uncle to the current Queen of Terre D’Ange, Ysandre, and is second in line for her throne. He was married into the Stregazza family by his brother. Benedicte sets up his own ‘little court’ of D’Angeline influence in Le Serenissima, and bring D’Angeline art and culture to the city. But despite his Seranissiman family and his long stay in the city, Benedicte is a D’Angeline at heart, and it is his countries interest that concern him far more than the happenings of the Doge’s court. And now with his new, young D’Angeline wife and D’Angeline son, some think that perhaps he plans to maneuver D’Angeline interests into the web of Seranissiman politics.

Prince Imriel de la Courcel: The new, baby son of Prince Benedicte with his mysterious D'Angeline wife, he is third in line to the D'Angeline throne, and seen as a threat by his Stragazza kinsmen.

Marie Celeste and Marco Stregazza: The parents of Servio, they both come from two of the most powerful families in La Seranissima. Marie Celeste is the daughter of Benedicte de la Courcel, Marco the son of the Doge. They both scheme to have Marco named as the successor to his father as Doge, but the full ramification of their plotting places the throne of Terre D’Ange in danger.

Servio Stregazza: The son of Marie Celeste and Marco, he is the grandson of both Prince Benedicte and the Doge. He meets Phedre while visiting his royal cousin’s court, and is entranced with her beauty, and she assists the young, angry man to accept both his desires, (repressed in the much more conservative Seranissiman society), and who he is as a Prince of the D’Angeline royal house. He is not as involved in the political plotting of his parents, and is much more honest about himself and his dealings than many of the Stregazza. He fears his grandfather, Benedicte, will chose to give his ‘little court’ to his new son, Imriel, and pass over his grandson.

Kazan Atribades: A pirate on the seas between La Serenissima and Illyria, Kazan rescues Phedre, but decides to hold her for ransom. Phedre uses her skills both to influence the wily pirate, but to heal him from the guilt of a crime that he accidentally committed many years before. As their relationship grows from captor to friendship, Kazan and his men are Phedre’s link to assisting her queen in what could be one of her deadliest hours.

Ysandre de la Courcel: Queen of Terre D’Ange, she is conducting a Royal Procession to La Serenissima to visit both her uncle and make her first state visit at the installation of the new Doge. She is unaware of the danger that lies waiting for her in the city.

Duc Barquiel L’Envers: The uncle of the queen, he knows that Melisande Sharhzai is plotting something against Ysandre, and is suspicious of everyone and everything, especially Phedre.

Duc Percy de Sommerville: The commander of the Queen’s Armies, he took over at Troyes-le-Mont after the death of the Duc D’Aiglemort, and was there when night that Melisande escaped.


Plot: Phedre is once again drawn into the web of Melisande Sharhzai’s schemes as a mysterious package arrives at her home in Montreve, drawing her and a reluctant and resentful Joscelin, along with her chevaliers, to La Serenissima on the search for Melisande. While Phedre makes a pretense of being courted by Servio Stregazza, she starts to see the undercurrents of intrigue that wind from La Serenissima back to Troyes-le-Mont. But before she can get work back to Ysandre back in Terre D’Ange, she is betrayed in the worst way, and sent to the lonely, maddening prison of La Dolorosa to rot. Hope is revived when Joscelin comes to her rescue, but an accidental turn causes Phedre to be tumbled into the sea, to be rescued by the likes of an Illyrian pirate and his crew. Now using her new found friends and allies, Phedre attempts to get word to her queen and prevent an attempted assassination before it is too late.

Themes:

Be careful of who you trust: One of the key themes in this book is in knowing who to trust and who not to trust. Phedre, who has grown enormously since the first book, still has problems in implicit assumptions on the trustworthiness of people, and in at least two cases in the story nearly has everything fall to ruins because of her implicit trust in people, (much as with Melisande in the first story). This is both boon for Phedre, as that means she has very near and dear people in her life, but it also tends to get her in trouble. It’s something that everyone must learn to deal with at some point in their lives growing up.

You always hurt the one you love: In Phedre’s case, she likes to be hurt, but sometimes it isn’t good for you, and it isn’t good to hurt them back. Often we let our own problems and issues cloud our minds from what is really important in any situation, that we love them and they love us, and that in the end is enough. And because of that, Joscelin and Phedre have to do a lot of painful soul searching and live with some hard truths before it all comes to right again. But in the end, their love comes out stronger for it.

Respect the faith of others: One of the things the D’Angelines do that I so respect in this book is that they are very aware of the fact that theirs is a young faith in the grand scheme of world religions. Perhaps it is built into the mythos of Elua, the bastard grandchild of the One God, which you must respect the more ancient beliefs and customs of those around you, as they were here first, and have as much claim to their believers as Elua does to his. Because of this, Phedre doesn’t turn her nose up at the worship of Asherat of the Sea, (a type of Venus/Lilith/Earth Mother worship), but respects that this is but another form of the story of the same Earth Mother who birthed Elua, her peoples’ progenitor. Likewise she respects the mystic beliefs of Kazan and of the people of Kriti, knowing that there is power and strength in their beliefs as sure as the power in her own. The fact that she doesn’t dismiss or belittle them, but accepts them as valid in their own right gives Phedre the ability to accept other cultures on face value, rather than through the lens of her own prejudice and perceptions, (though she is a bit stuck up about D’Angeline art, I must say, LOL.)

Accepting who you are, but also accepting those that you love for what they are: It’s one of those painful things you learn as you grow up, that there are things about yourself that you do not like. Teenagers are the worst in this aspect, but even young adults. Many of us hate the fact that we think we are either too fat, or too tall, or that we aren’t ‘cool’ enough. It’s hard reconciling who and what we are, our true selves, to the world’s expectations of us. Even worse is when the people who care for clash with those perceptions as well, which cause us to question even more and to search for ourselves in different ways. Some of us, like Joscelin, seek out those answers through religion. Others, like Servio, fight against what we are, and become angry about everyone and everything. It often takes many trials, but eventually people figure it out, sometimes it is quickly, and sometimes it takes years. But in the end, they can find contentment, something we find with Servio’s aunt and uncle, who live beyond the politics of La Serenissima, even though they are involved in it. They are unconventional by the standards of their culture, but they find personal happiness, and this is all any of us can ask for.

Every book sucks somewhere: Unlike Kushiel’s Dart, Which had it’s plot primarily in three locations, (City of Elua, Skaldia, and Alba), Kushiel’s Chosen is a whirlwind of places, torn between Montreve, the City of Elua, La Serenissima, Kazan’s Island, Illyria, Kriti, back to Illyria, and then again to La Serenissima, before the march through northern Caerdicci Unitas, (Italy), back to the City of Elua. I got fairly travel sick just reading the book. There was so much going on that I felt a bit spun around, and wondered how much more you could possibly fit into one huge book. While the plot worked well, it was a lot of stuff going on, and sometimes I felt like I wanted Carey to just get to the point already.

I was also not terribly sure what the point of the Yeshuite subplot was, save to show Joscelin’s trouble coping with the choices he had made in the first book and Phedre’s return to Naamah’s Service. I find the Yeshuites interesting, especially as they do figure prominently in later books, but it’s a tad confusing as to what their purpose in this one was. I feel as if Carey is building up to something with the Yeshuites, (indeed, you see more and more of this as the books progress), but it’s not clear at this moment, so part of you is asking yourself, “Um, OK, but why?” Perhaps I should just be patient. Still, I like the Yeshuite subplot a lot, but like the Jews of Frank Herbert’s Dune novels, I’m kind of scratching my head as to why they are there.

What did I like: Well, everything else! One of the things I love about Carey’s handling of sex and sexuality in these books is that it is so tastefully done. No, it’s not prudish in the least bit, but it isn’t graphic or obscene. It isn’t a trashy romance novel with Fabio on the cover. There are no ‘throbbing swords of masculinity’. Because of the language she uses and the way she writes it, it makes this aspect of D’Angeline culture seem very natural and normal. The fact that they embrace love in all of its forms, even the physical, mean that things we in our society would blush at, they talk about with a frankness that would shock our Puritan souls. But she does it well, and she does it in such a way that it is believable that they would react that way.

This book also gives us an even further glance into the complex politics of D’Angeline society. We see how the courtiers to Ysande’s court react to Phedre when she makes her grand entrance into the Midwinter Ball, and we see how they turn from her when she is supposedly ‘out’ with the Queen. As the politics of the D’Angeline court begin to take more of a precedent in the later books, it is interesting to see how Phedre perceives and plays it as opposed to later on down the line when it is Imriel, her foster son. We also are beginning to see some of the fault lines in the political system that Melisande is using to her advantage, things she pushes or plays with to gain what she desires. Such as the fact that despite her exile, she is fully aware of how a Cruithne husband to the Queen of Terre D’Ange will upset many nobles who will not appreciate a half-Cruithne child of the union ruling over the Land of Elua. They would perhaps welcome a pureblooded child of the line of Elua, and she knows of one such person, far from his homeland, who would appreciate the chance of returning to the place he was exiled from in triumph. This extra layer of politics adds depth to the world we got to know in the first book, and sets up the intrigues that we begin to learn better in the later books.

How would I rate this wormy book: I would rate this book as a big, FAT WORM. I don’t think it is as strong a book as the first one, Kushiel’s Dart, but it is a wonderful read, and it gets us further into the world of Terre D’Ange and the people outside of the borders of the country. It’s a good follow up to the wonderful first story.