The Shadow Queen by Anne Bishop

Theran Grayhaven is a Warlord Prince from the land of Dena Nehele. It was once under control of the Queens called the Gray Ladies, but the Queens who ruled descended into cruelty and torture. When Jaenelle Angelline loosed the cataclysm that destroyed the Blood tainted with cruelty, it wiped out most of the Queens, and a large portion of the Blood as well.

Those who were left had to face an uprising by the Landen, those commoners who had no connection to the Blood and who were often victims of the same cruelty. They were tired of being tortured and mistreated and rose in open rebellion against the Blooded Males and women who were left.

Finally, two years later, the rebellion is over. However, in the whole of Dena Nehele, there are only 100 Blooded Males and no females fit to rule. Those that are left are either too old, too young, or too much like the cruel queens that came before to be able to gain the loyalty of the blooded males who are left. With no other choice, Theran goes to Sadi Sa Diablo, as a man of his line was promised help by Sadi long ago, and asks for a Queen from the Shadow Realm to rule Dena Nehele. And, as the highest living Warlord Prince, he must go to the Shadow Realm and ask for the help.

Sadi and Jaenelle take a dislike to Theran, whose lands have long disdained the Rules that the Shadow Court lives under. But because he wants a Queen who knows and will resurrect those rules, they recommend to him a witch Queen named Lady Cassidy, a rose-jeweled witch whose court deserted her for another. Not from any defect of hers, but because none of them really had her best interests at heart.

But Theran doesn't like what he sees. Cassidy has light-colored jewels and she is not beautiful enough, or in his mind, powerful enough, to compel the service of the other Queens. To say they don't hit it off is understating the case by a great deal, but Cassidy is willing to work and chooses men who are drawn to her to serve her, knowing that their loyalty will last.

Everything she does rubs Theran the wrong way, from the men she selects for her inner court and first circle of protectors, to the fact that Theran's cousin Gray and she seem to feel a connection that Theran does not.

Theran is protective of Gray because Gray was tortured by the former Queens, who believed Gray was Theran. If it wasn't for Theran's mentor Thorn, Gray would never have been rescued, but the torture broke Gray and left behind scars more mental than physical, though he has plenty of both.

Can Cassidy's different ways settle Dena Nehele? Or is Theran right, and is she too ugly, too weak and too different to make being Queen here a success? Or is Cassidy someone Theran can grow to accept, someone who may not be excessively powerful in magic, but with power in other ways?

This book was very much different from what I was used to reading from Anne Bishop. Not so much the main story of Cassidy, Theran and Gray, but the other intrusions into the stories of Sadi, Jaenelle, Daemon and Lucivar that somewhat diluted the impact of Cassidy's story.

Yes, if Anne Bishop's idea was to show that there were continuing consequences from Jaenelle's decision to purge the Blood of the taint of outright Sadism and Cruelty for everyone involved, even Jaenelle herself, I can see the point. But do it in a medium that focusses on Jaenelle, et al rather than poking it into a story where those asides diluted the impact.

Even with the asides and side story that should have been dealt with elsewhere, or in a few chapters in a short story of their own, this isn't a bad book, and I feel enlarges the world that Anne Bishop created in "Daughter of the Blood". I want to read more about Cassidy, and hope the asides are kept to the bare minimum next time.