A fabulous tale of intrigues and derring-do, with a flavor of folkloric magic.
Sherwood Smith has done it again – keeping me up to read just one more chapter….
When I joined the other pro novelists at the publishing coop Book View Café, I wasn’t familiar with Smith’s extensive portfolio of fantasy adventure (as well as science fiction) novels, but quickly became a fan. I was lucky enough to become an early reader for her Chinese-flavored Phoenix Feather series (also published by Book View Café), and my admiration for her writing has only grown. Her fantasy worlds are peopled by complex characters facing believable and gripping crises both personal and empire-threatening. The political pressures and machinations of her kingdoms and their rulers, and the responses of common folk, could be jumping out of today’s news (but in a much more entertaining way and with hope for some happy outcomes). Add beautifully poetic writing, captivating settings, complex systems of belief and magic, a wealth of visceral detail, and exciting action scenes, and here come those late nights reading.
CORONETS AND STEEL was published in 2010 by Daw, and this new Book View Café edition is updated to be set in the early 2000s while preserving the original essence and plotlines.
Smith, with a master’s degree in history, creates the fictional Eastern European kingdom of Dobrenica with her signature convincing detail, from the mud of valleys to soaring mountain peaks, charming villages, and an entire system of mysterious folkloric “magic.” I had to check twice to make sure that the tiny country, overrun serially over centuries and finally by the Nazi Germans and then Soviets, wasn’t an actual place. Her hero, Aurelia Kim Murray, a graduate student and champion fencer from California, learns a lot of history (as do we readers) as she arrives in Vienna to research her mysterious family roots. When a handsome stranger who seems to know her invites her for a drink, she ends up in colorful Dobrenica, which has seemingly escaped much of the development of modern times. There she is mistaken for a missing member of one of the most powerful aristocratic families.
While trying to figure out her place within convoluted intrigues and encounters with mostly hostile members of the noble families, Kim becomes entangled in increasingly dangerous power struggles. Daring escapes from kidnapping attempts, along with duels of words and actual swords, ensue. As always, Smith excels at action scenes that make a reader wince with each blow, bruise, and narrow escape. And her fully-fleshed characters, including the recklessly plucky Kim, convince me to believe in them, including several important men and women with ambiguous motives and actions. Who are the good guys and who the enemies of the kingdom under siege along with Kim? She mingles with nobles and commoners alike, finding friends and possible enemies among them, as well as attraction to two very different men who desire her assistance and more. Not every thread is untangled by the end, and I couldn’t wait to start the next novel in the series, BLOOD SPIRITS.
*****
You will find The Rambling Writer’s blog posts here every Saturday. Sara’s latest novel from Book View Café is Pause, a First Place winner of the Chanticleer Somerset Award and an International Pulpwood Queens Book Club selection. “A must-read novel about friendship, love, and killer hot flashes.” (Mindy Klasky). Sign up for her quarterly email newsletter at www.sarastamey.com
