Another Neumeier masterpiece…

I believe I will likely attempt to read everything she has ever published. I look forward to whatever else her exceptionally creative and lyrical mind and heart produce in this life. ( )

Matters come to a head in Tenai’s world as both the doctor and his daughter have to fight for their own places and survival. I confess that by the end I was a bit squicked by their happy acceptance of all the feudalism and honor culture, which was helped by their immediately achieving incredibly high status and favor. In some sense, it’s not all that different from Ankh-Morpork being governed by Vetinari … but at least there you had the sense that they might be heading for democratic representation, which is not the case here. ( )

Arguably this is just the second half of Of Absence, Darkness, although because Jenna becomes a POV character, I think there’s enough difference to justify it being published as a separate book.

The book alternates between Jenna and Daniel, a welcome development and not only because she offers a different perspective to her father’s. Daniel is caught in an intensely stressful situation and I think the narrative would have felt far more claustrophobic if the focus had all been on him. Jenna’s circumstances are stressful too, but she’s less constrained and less isolated than Daniel is, and the progress she’s making towards her goals is more obvious.

I liked that her adventures allow her to meet a greater variety of people, and give her a wider understanding of this world.

This was very gripping. And it has a satisfying resolution -- the right sort of ending for this sort of story. I want to reread the whole trilogy now.

Running for your life from the bad guys, she thought with a certain irritation, seemed to involve a lot more boredom and physical discomfort than actual running, and to take absolutely forever. ( )