've read two pre-pubs this week: The Taken by Vicki Pettersson and Grave
Mercy by Robin LaFevers. The first is a bit of a fluff, light urban
fantasy, but the romance (thankfully) is secondary to the action, and
has an interesting view of the afterlife.
Grave Mercy is a YA
novel, taking place in medieval France, when the French are attempting
to take over Brittany, and Christianity and its New Gods
are edging out the Old ones who have been turned into saints.
Political machinations abound -- though nothing on the scale of Game of
Thrones, say -- enough to give the reader a feel for the unstable ground
on which the protagonist walks.
The tagline for this novel
sums it up, "Why be the sheep when you can be the wolf?" The
protagonist, Ismae, after escaping an arranged marriage to a turnip
farmer at the age of 13, has been raised in a convent whose initiates
have been trained in the arts of Death. The course of the novel charts
Ismae's journey from unquestioning obedience and use as a political tool
to a dawning recognition of the more complex nature of the saint she
serves.
Grave Mercy is out now in hard cover; the Taken comes out in June.
