Hope there’s more Black Jewels novels coming! I hadn’t read the book right before this – the Shadow Queen, so I didn’t have some of the specific background. But since I have read all the other Black Jewels novels I had the right overall/general background. This was a great installment. It brought back my beloved characters of Sadi, Janelle, The High Lord, Lucivar and of course the Scelties. I also really liked the new characters (which might not be new for those who read the Shadow Queen).
It was a good story. It was an interesting comment on how people see what they want to see in others, since Kermilla was definitely not the wonderful woman that Theran thinks she is.
The only criticism that I have for this book is that there were times when the the characters clearly understood things I didn’t. They would infer something from the conversation or get an idea and I was totally lost. And later, and I never really felt like “ah-ha! that was what they were talking about!” I still felt like, ok, I missed something. That might be a function of not reading the immediate predecessor, or it might be a fault in the writing – not sure which.
I also would love to have seen more Khollie. He is one of the most adorable Scelties and I would love to see more of his relationship with his human. Not to mention, I was in tears about what happened to him – more then once – and wanted to throttle Kermilla as a result.
The plot moves along nicely. And I think that Theran is nicely redeemed. It seems to be set up for more Black Jewels novels and I welcome that. If you have read the others though – this is definitely not the place to start as it does not have the typically summary of all the history that many series books have at the beginning of each (and for me, that is a welcome change since after 7 book I don’t need the summary of the jewels and ranks, etc., reexplained) but it would leave the newcomer to this world a little confused.
Glad I bought it – I will re-read it with the rest of the series. And now, I just need to order the Shadow Queen since my borders didn’t have it (and I can fill in the few gaps skipping that one left me with!)
Book Series Tracker 
omg i loved all the books but this one had so much depth loved shadow queen as much if not more. I hope there are more books to come as so many avenues are still left open.
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I strongly suggest that you read The Shadow Queen and Shalador’s Lady in sequence — they are really one huge book, and the references you missed were most likely found in the first one. And while not required, I found that reading The Invisible Ring first, and then TSQ and SL put the whole picture together!
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