Off in the distance

She’s cutting off the weak to save the strong. No, not even that. Cutting off the poor to save the rich. [loc. 6441]

There has been peace in Concordia for a thousand years: the twelve provinces are united against the threat of invasion, and each province has an heir who's been granted a magical gift, a Blessing, by the Goddess Herself. Voyage of the Damned begins just as Ganymedes ('Dee'), the representative of Fish province, is desperately trying to avoid embarking on the eponymous voyage -- to a sacred mountain, on the Emperor's own ship -- with the other eleven Blesseds.( Read more... )

Tenai had come into Dr. Dodson's care raging with a fury so tightly contained that a casual glance might have judged her calm. She was not calm. Daniel did not need to be told this. He knew it from the first moment he saw her. [p.2]

Daniel Dodson is a gifted psychiatrist who's mourning the death of his wife, and struggling to raise their daughter Jenna. He's also fouled his professional record by whistleblowing an abusive colleague. Now he's working at a smaller institution, Lindenwood, where his first patient is a mute 'Jane Doe' who was found on the highway, threatening vehicles with a sword. She cannot be identified, and nobody can communicate with her.

Daniel persuades her to speak. Her name is Tenai, and the tale she tells is a fantastical account of another world where she made a bargain with Lord Death and avenged her family over a lifespan of centuries. Dr Dodson, eminently sensible, diagnoses her thus: "I think you encountered something in this world that you couldn’t live with, and so you invented another world to be from." ( Read more... )

Summer stories had a rhythm and a pattern to them, and she knew in her belly exactly how that one should have ended: with the summer lord rising healed and radiant from his bed to catch the hand of the heroic knight who had saved him... [loc. 556]

The Summer War has the beats and the ambience of the most classic fairytales: a king with three children, a curse with unexpected consequences, a bargain with the fae (in this world known as 'summerlings') that hinges on wording, a heroic princess.( Read more... )