Daughter of the Blood by Anne Bishop

I started reading Daughter of the Blood by Anne Bishop today. This is the first in her Black Jewels Trilogy. I've had a number of people recommend it, but it always seemed like it might be a bit disturbing and dark, so I left it alone.

Late last year, [FantasyFavorites] read it and while I didn't, it was clear nearly everyone really enjoyed it. To the point the two sequels have been voted into the group's reading list - Heir to the Shadows for this month and Queen of the Darkness for May. Over Christmas the friend who fed my fantasy reading habit when I was a broke teenager also recommended them, so I decided to reserve the first one from the library.

I started it today and I'm already totally hooked, even if I've only been able to read around Marcus' demands for attention. (Aren't they supposed to need less time as they get older, rather than more?)

The dark themes are there, but so far it hasn't been graphic and nasty, which is what I don't like to read. I'm fine with that kind of thing if it is't show to me in gory detail. The best stories are the often the ones where the fight is against something that deserves to be fought against - if that makes sense.

Unfortunately, I'm not reading an edition with the lovely cover above. That isn't even going to be published until later this year. It's also a trade paperback so I'm going to be buying the 3-in-1 omnibus that is the best price, but I do love these new covers. Instead, I've got the kind of skanky US mass market paperback cover.



You can see all three pretty new covers for this series over on A Cover a Day... I'm intending to start putting up covers there again. I don't promise it will actually be a cover a day - it may be seven covers one day in a week, or just random covers at random intervals - but I am going to do better.