Naamah's Kiss by Jacqueline Carey

Moirin is born as a member of the Maghuinn Donn, a secretive group of Alban people. Many years ago, two of their own sacrificed themselves to ensure that the child of a woman of Alba and a man of the D'Angellines would not live to destroy their people. They succeeded in killing the child, and paid a harsh price for it. Their goddess, the Maghuinn Donn herself, took away their power to shapeshift and made them a hunted people.

Moirin is the daughter of a woman named Fanche and a D'Angelline man, a priest, as she later finds out. Because of her parentage, her skin is a honeyed shade, and her eyes are those of her father- green as rushes, green as grass. She is taught to hide herself within the twilight by her mother at five, but beyond this shows no clear aptitude for magic.

Her encounter with Cillian, a young Alban boy, brings friendship into her life, and a long series of treats such as apples, peaches, sausages and honeycakes. Cillian teaches her to read Alban, and D'Angelline as well, and as they grow older, and Moirin becomes a woman, they also become lovers.

Their relationship is not without tulmult, since Cillian's father believes Moirin's mother has ensorcelled Cillian, but Moirin makes an appearance to their distant relatives (Cillian is a many-times removed cousin to Moirin) to show herself and prove it is her that Cillian is coming to see, not Fanche. Later, Cillian wants to marry Moirin, and brings her home with him, but Moirin is well aware that Cillian's family thinks she has ensorcelled him, and she soon comes to the conclusion that she loves him, but not enough to marry him and be his wife forever.

However, when his family is raided, Cillian is determined to take part in a counter-raid, and as Moirin deals with how to tell Cillian she cannot marry him, he is killed in the raid, and she goes into deep mourning in the forest.

Shortly afterwards, she undergoes the meeting with the Bear-Goddess of her people, and the Bear-Goddess accepts her as a Maghuinn Donn, but lets her know that she has a destiny elsewhere, so she cannot stay in Alba until she figures out what that destiny is.

Bowing to fate, Moirin decides to seek out the other half of her heritage and travels to Terre D'Ange, hoping to find her father. On her way there, she realizes that she truly is a child of Naamah, a child of desire, and her two coachmates fill her ears with scandalous tales of the Queen of Terre D'Ange, Jeanne, who is a former adept of the Night Court raised to the Queenhood by her husband, King David. She also hears tales of a nobleman named Raphael de Mereliot, who is the Queen's most recent lover, or so the gossip says.

Shortly after arriving in the city, however, Moirin finds her purse stolen and goes in pursuit of the thief. Unfortunately, she is struck by a carriage- owned by none other that Rafael de Mereliot! A physician, Raphael tends to her wounds and lets her stay at his house. She is attracted to him and soon becomes his lover. But once Raphael realizes that Moirin has magical powers over plants, he introduces her to his mentor, a Ch'in Scholar named Master Lo Feng. He takes Moirin on as a student, and teaches her to breathe in the ways of the elements.

This helps her when Raphael inducts her into his group which is studying real knowledge, calling up strange spirits for the information they hold. Raphael hopes to gain greater healing knowledge out of the summonings, but the spirits seem only suited for trickery- although they seem to like Moirin and keep her immune from their trickery. But using her powers this way is very draining, and soon it seems the magic circle wish to get revenge on the spirits that have tricked them rather than just straightforward knowledge.

But using her magic to call up these spirits is killing Moirin, and finally, the Queen herself removes Moirin from Raphael's house, where she spirits her to the palace and makes Moirin her attendant- and her lover. There, Moirin slowly recuperates, but Raphael is enraged by what he sees as Moirin's "betrayal" of him, and he breaks off relations with her.

This doesn't bother Moirin, until her father seemingly disappears on a journey to Azzrael to mediate between the families of two lovers, both male, who disapprove of their relationship- for her father is a Priest at the shrine of star-crossed lovers. When he is found, he is deathly ill, and Moirin needs Raphael's help to save him from death. He does it at a price- she agrees to help him in one more summoning. She reluctantly agrees, and her father is saved.

When Moirin has recovered, some months later, she returns to Raphael to fulfill that part of the bargain. But this time, the summoning goes bad, and a woman is killed by the spirit they summon, and Raphael is possessed. Moirin nearly kills herself again to banish the spirit, and this leads to a final severing of her relationship with Rafael.

Once again needing to recover, she is taken in by Master Lo Feng, and when he is summoned home to Ch'in to help the Emperor's Daughter, Moirin feels that this is part of her destiny, and she must accompany him. She joins Master Lo and his half-Tatar servant Bao on the voyage to Ch'in, becoming lovers with Bao along the way. She learns the language of Ch'in and some others from Bao, and doesn't realize that they are sailing into a civil war.

For the daughter of the Emperor tore apart her new husband on her wedding night, and her husband's father wants her killed for that. The Emperor maintains that his daughter is possessed, and wants Master Lo to rid her of that possession. But the other man is not willing to wait, and with the assistance of his own sorceror, Black Sleeves, is waging war on the Emperor using horrible weapons filled with black powder and flying bits of metal.

But using her twilight sight, Moirin can see what is posessing the Emperor's daughter, and it isn't quite a spirit- it's a dragon, driven mad by being unable to see its reflection in the eyes of other humans. So if the Emperor's Daughter looks upon another person, the dragon kills them as it did her husband. When it realizes Moirin can see and hear it, it decides that Snow Tiger, the Emperor's daughter, needs a new husband- Moirin, and forces Snow Tiger to copulate with her, an act the Princess finds distasteful in the extreme.

But meanwhile, Master Lo Feng realizes what has happened. When he was a young man, he stole a dragon's pearl, and his son, now known as Black Sleeves, dissolved it in a potion of vinegar and gave it to Snow Tiger to drink before her wedding night, which allowed the Dragon to possess her. Can Moirin, Bao, Master Lo Feng, and a group of Stick Fighters who once followed Bao when he was young, sneak Snow Tiger out of the palace and escort her to the mirror lake atop a mountain where the Dragon will be able to emerge from Snow Tiger's body without falling prey to the rebellion against the Emperor? And how does this fit in with Moirin's great destiny that she must fulfill before returning to her people?

This is a big book (over 600 pages), but the words were so thrilling and wonderful that I found myself finishing the book in less than four hours- the story just drew me along in its wake and I couldn't even put the book down when I had to make dinner or go to the bathroom- I was completely sucked in. This book is like a black hole when it comes to drawing the reader into the story- there is no resisting and you're there until the last page is done.

This is the third series set in the world of Elua, the child of Jesus and Mother Earth, born when Jesus's blood dripped on the soil of Mother Earth at his crucifixion, and it takes place many years after the second series. Phédre no Delaunay and Imriel de la Courcel are long dead, but they are still rather famous, as people can still remember their names and what they did. But this series introduces us to a new heroine: Moirin, daughter of Fanche, and she's a worthy successor to the heroes and heroines of old. She may be half-Alban, but her destiny means that she will be just as much of a world-changer as Jacqueline Carey's previous protagonists.

Since the previous two series have focussed mainly on Terre D'Ange, Alba and what is in our world the Middle East, this book takes us far afield to Ch'in, the analogue to China, although Alba and Terre D'Ange come in for more exploration as well. I found the descriptions wonderful and amazing, giving a sense of the land without being overly dry, tedious or boring. And the story? Well, if Carey was a baseball player, she'd be a home run queen- hitting it out of the stadium every time she was at bat. It's impossible not to get drawn in- and impossible not to enjoy what is going on around the main character.

I was blown away by Naamah's Kiss, the first volume in a new trilogy and proof that not only has Jacqueline Carey still "got it", she never lost it in the first place! This book is like a dazzling star in the night sky- shiny and bright and making everything else look like darkness in comparison to it. I highly recommend this book, as well as all the others that Carey has written. You just have to read it to feel the amazing intensity and description that Carey is capable of.