-Jaenelle
Three authors dominated my bookshelf in middle school and most of high school, J.K Rowling, Laurell K Hamilton, and Anne Bishop. I read them so much that I have a tendency to just refer to them by their first names as if we're good friends. And my girl Anne B writes fantasy novels. In my humble opinion, The Dark Jewels trilogy is the best of them.
As usual when I was younger, I accidentally read the books out of order. I picked up the second one from my local library and had no idea what was going on. Despite this, the world that Anne B introduced me to was so interesting that I checked it out the book numerous times before hunting down the first one, Daughter of the Blood.
“What does it matter? She is coming. …the day is
coming when the debt will be called in, and the Blood will have to
answer for what they’ve become. The Darkness has had a Prince for a
long, long, time. Now the Queen is coming.”
| — | Tersa |
Daughter of the Blood is the first stage in the chronicle of the prophesied Witch. Despite being born with immense powers, Jaenelle Angelline is a young girl who struggles with her nature and a decaying society that wants to either control or destroy her. Misunderstood by her family, she tries to find her place and she finds teachers and guides in Saetan SaDiablo, Daemon Sadi, Surreal, and Luciavar Yaslana, people who are trying to survive in a corrupt system without going insane or giving up hope.
This story brings you into the world of the Blood where magical power is determined by what jewel you wear and Darkness is the deity by which you swear. The Blood are born with a certain jewel and depending on their strength, they can descend three levels in jewel rank. The darker your jewels the stronger you; the weakest jewel is White and the most powerful jewel is Black.
The Blood are matriarchal and along with jewels, they have different power castes denoted by gender. Women can be either Queens, Healers, Priestesses, Black Widows, or some mixture of the four. Men can be Warlord Princes, Princes, or warlords but there is no equivalent male caste to Queen which is the strongest caste. Thus in this world, Queens are meant to form courts, rule, and protect the land. One of the main conflicts comes from the antagonists' distorting the natural order as they are lesser jeweled priestesses who set themselves up as Queens.
Again, it was the world-building that dragged me into this story: the jewel ranks, the power castes, the matriarchal society where women are the stronger ones, and a culture in which purity is dark and black.
The diversity of the races of the Blood was another draw. They each had their own culture and land. Most races like the Dea al Mon and Chaillotians live up to around a hundred and twenty five years. Jaenelle is from Chaillot and falls into this category. Like her, these two races tend to have pale skin and lighter colored hair and eyes though the Dea al Mon also have pointed ears, big eyes, and are basically the elves of this dimension.
The Hayllian, Dhemlans, and Eyrien are the long-lived races able to live up to five thousand years. These races are darker-skinned, ranging from golden to brown, with darker hair and gold eyes. The Eyrien have leathery wings and can fly. Saetan, Lucivar, Daemon, and Surreal all fall into this category; Lucivar is the only Eyrien.
"Hell's Fire, Mother Night and May the Darkness Be Merciful."
-Lucivar Yaslana
The characters were what clinched the story for me though. The story might be about Jaenelle, but its told from the perspective of the other characters. The main narrators are Saetan, Lucivar, and Daemon with a little bit of Surreal, and Hekatah and Dorethea, the antagonists, sprinkled in. The story is very heavy at times as it deals with systematic sexual slavery, child abuse, sexual abuse, abuse, and rape, but the narrators' distinct voices help bring you through each topic. With the exceptions of Hekatah and Dorethea, the narrators are engaging, serious when they need to be but always bringing humor and sarcasm that will make you laugh out loud even when they are splattering people over walls. And in this world, splattering people happens more often than not. These characters live in a violence filled world and are unquestionably and unresistingly violent; there is no good and evil but shades of grey. Daemon is nicknamed the Sadist for his cruelty and body count. Lucivar is almost as bad; Saetan's past out does them both. And Surreal is an assassin. This remains one of the few books where I like every single main character even though Surreal will always be my favorite because of her attitude, power, and humor.
Plus, not only was it refreshing to have a female character of color in a fantasy novel with a central speaking role, it was wonderful that she was there and she wasn't a walking racial stereotype.
This book is on my forever reading book list alongside the rest of the trilogy, early Laurrell K, and most of JK. It helped inspire me to write characters that look like me, be as graphic as I felt necessary, and to allow my darker sense of humor to shine in my work.
"Everything has its price."
-Saetan
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