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jaceyI'm in the middle of writing at the moment, which generally means my own reading suffers as I can't comfortably read fiction when I'm writing different fiction, however a trip to London and back gave me eight hours as a pasenger in the car and I'm afraiud I was antisocial enough to seize on the opportunity to read The Merchant of Dreams.
The second installment of Mal Catlyn's adventures, beginning about a year after the events in Alchemist of Souls. Mal finds a party of skraylings in the Mediterranean, shipwrecked, captured by the locals and now dead by their own hand. When Kiiren is called away from the skrayling haven on Sark to replace the dead ambassador ona mission to Venice, Mal's brother, Sandy, sometimes all brother, sometimes all skrayling, is released into his care. Sandy is much improved, but he'll never be the brother Mal wants him to be.
Mal, in the meantime has been, at Walsingham's command, settling in to his new estates in France where he's an English ear at the French court. His 'manservant', Coby is more than she seems and there's a huge attraction between her and Mal, but she won't give up her male guise and he won't treat her as female until she does since the punishment for homosexual love is death. (Not that this seems to worry Mal's friend, Ned, and his lover Gabriel.)
When Mal is sent to Venice by Walsingham to spy on the Kiiren's trade mission, he takes Ned and Coby is left to look after Sandy, but Sandy soon puts himself (and Coby and Gabriel) in desperate danger. Fleeing London, heading for Mal's estates in France they get kidnapped and the tangled knots begin to tighten.
The plot is satisfyingly convoluted with Mal, Coby, Sandy, Ned and Gabriel eventually coming together again in time for the major events to unfold, and there's a nicde payoff. Second books can be difficult, but this is handled deftly and the story expands beyond London to a well-researched late sixteenth century Venice. I like that Mal doesn't always make good decisions, but one decision here seems out of character. I'll wait to see how that resolves in the third book.
Highly recommended.
The second installment of Mal Catlyn's adventures, beginning about a year after the events in Alchemist of Souls. Mal finds a party of skraylings in the Mediterranean, shipwrecked, captured by the locals and now dead by their own hand. When Kiiren is called away from the skrayling haven on Sark to replace the dead ambassador ona mission to Venice, Mal's brother, Sandy, sometimes all brother, sometimes all skrayling, is released into his care. Sandy is much improved, but he'll never be the brother Mal wants him to be.
Mal, in the meantime has been, at Walsingham's command, settling in to his new estates in France where he's an English ear at the French court. His 'manservant', Coby is more than she seems and there's a huge attraction between her and Mal, but she won't give up her male guise and he won't treat her as female until she does since the punishment for homosexual love is death. (Not that this seems to worry Mal's friend, Ned, and his lover Gabriel.)
When Mal is sent to Venice by Walsingham to spy on the Kiiren's trade mission, he takes Ned and Coby is left to look after Sandy, but Sandy soon puts himself (and Coby and Gabriel) in desperate danger. Fleeing London, heading for Mal's estates in France they get kidnapped and the tangled knots begin to tighten.
The plot is satisfyingly convoluted with Mal, Coby, Sandy, Ned and Gabriel eventually coming together again in time for the major events to unfold, and there's a nicde payoff. Second books can be difficult, but this is handled deftly and the story expands beyond London to a well-researched late sixteenth century Venice. I like that Mal doesn't always make good decisions, but one decision here seems out of character. I'll wait to see how that resolves in the third book.
Highly recommended.
