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For the millions of fans who made bestsellers of Jacqueline Carey's sexy alternate history novels in the Kushiel series, a treat awaits you that's better than all Namaah's pleasures. Kushiel's Justice, the fifth book of the series, hits bookstores in a week. While prequel Kushiel's Scion was an occasionally long-winded coming of age novel, here Carey is back in fine form. She focuses on the young adulthood, first love, and arranged marriage of Imriel, foster-son of Phèdre, prostitute-spy-heroine of the first trilogy. While Imriel doesn't have any of Phèdre's superpowers -- she's a rare creature known as an anguissette, a person who takes pleasure in pain -- he shares her political acumen and brilliance in the "arts of covertcy."
For those who haven't delved into the intricate world Carey created for this series, here's a quick primer: The books take place in an alternate middle ages where Christianity never took hold and instead most European countries remained pagan. In Terre D'Ange, the alternate France from whence our characters hail, the people worship Elua, the offspring of Jesus and Mary Magdelene, whose main precept is "love as thou wilt." It's a medieval world where prostitutes are royalty and sexuality is one of the arts taught in school. In the first three books, anguissette heroine Phèdre manages to travel all across Skaldia (Germany) and the Middle East, battling evil both political and supernatural, along the way turning sexual masochism into the coolest superpower ever. Really.
Now she's stepped aside so her foster-son Imriel can take the spotlight. He's the birth son of her greatest enemy, Melisande, a traitor to Terre D'Ange who once aroused Phèdre's greatest sexual passion. As a child, Imriel was kidnapped and tortured by an evil mastermind, so he's sort of broody. He's also very definitely under the protection of Kushiel, one of Elua's apostles, who is the god of punishment and sadomasochism. When we meet Imriel in Kushiel's Justice, he's about to marry the princess of Alba (England), and go live forever across the straights from his forbidden love Sidonie, the princess of
Terre D'Ange. Like all the Kushiel books, this one is a masterpiece of world-building: you'll get to see more of the mysterious, savage world of the Albans, as well as take a snowy trip to Vralia (Russia) where a tiny tribe of Yeshuites (Judeo-Christians) is trying to set up a homeland. Plus, there's plenty of romance: Imriel is torn between a hot passion for Sidonie and a call to duty as the new Alban prince.
If you've read the other Kushiel books, you'll be ecstatic with this summer's coolest beach reading so far. Carey delivers a whopping (and much-appreciated) 700 pages of international intrigue, eroticism, and mystery, along with lots of tasty food and baths. If you haven't experienced this strangely compelling series, give it a whirl. The first book, Kushiel's Dart, is one of the best fantasy novels ever written.
