Flesh and Spirit by Carol Berg
Feb. 12th, 2020 11:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iariaI really enjoyed this.
+ I like the world-building – the Harrows and the slow reveal about what exactly they were doing [torture-murdering people to kill Danae guardians to unmoor the natural world), the Purebloods and the intricate rules and traditions, the Danae themselves. I liked the whole Lighthouse concept and the secret cabal behind it.
+ I liked Valen and his determinedness to do what was best for himself and his slyness with words, and then how it keeps getting messed up often because of his own compassion.
+ I’m very interested in the mystery of who Valen is. My theory is that he is half-Danae himself, perhaps the child of Clyste and Janus, stolen by Janus and brought back to the real world with him. The stolen treasure. Certainly all the signs – his restlessness, his wildness, his height, and the way his magic works by so closely communing with the earth, the illness he was born with (because he was trapped in a city?), the Danae’s interest in him, even his inability to read – say he is at least part Danae. How his human parents came to believe they were his natural parents – eh, magic, likely Janus. And if Valen is Janus’s son than his devotion and love for him, and the extent of his sacrifice for him, makes even more sense.
+ I liked how age and new knowledge reframed how Valen saw both Janus and Thalassa, and the almost affection reached between him and Lassa by the end.
+ I feel like that change in how he views things will also happen with Osriel. That all is not what it seems with him. I liked how it ended with Valen unwillingly in Osriel’s ‘employ’.
+ The bit of romance between Valen and Elene was deeply meh. I was not feeling it so I guess it’s good that it was barely there?
+ I made the mistake of reading the first page of the second book so I knew there was a friend betrayal coming and it was clearly going to be either Gildas or Gram but I still liked the reveal.
+ I was genuinely surprised that Abbott Luvier was killed.
+ I like the world-building – the Harrows and the slow reveal about what exactly they were doing [torture-murdering people to kill Danae guardians to unmoor the natural world), the Purebloods and the intricate rules and traditions, the Danae themselves. I liked the whole Lighthouse concept and the secret cabal behind it.
+ I liked Valen and his determinedness to do what was best for himself and his slyness with words, and then how it keeps getting messed up often because of his own compassion.
+ I’m very interested in the mystery of who Valen is. My theory is that he is half-Danae himself, perhaps the child of Clyste and Janus, stolen by Janus and brought back to the real world with him. The stolen treasure. Certainly all the signs – his restlessness, his wildness, his height, and the way his magic works by so closely communing with the earth, the illness he was born with (because he was trapped in a city?), the Danae’s interest in him, even his inability to read – say he is at least part Danae. How his human parents came to believe they were his natural parents – eh, magic, likely Janus. And if Valen is Janus’s son than his devotion and love for him, and the extent of his sacrifice for him, makes even more sense.
+ I liked how age and new knowledge reframed how Valen saw both Janus and Thalassa, and the almost affection reached between him and Lassa by the end.
+ I feel like that change in how he views things will also happen with Osriel. That all is not what it seems with him. I liked how it ended with Valen unwillingly in Osriel’s ‘employ’.
+ The bit of romance between Valen and Elene was deeply meh. I was not feeling it so I guess it’s good that it was barely there?
+ I made the mistake of reading the first page of the second book so I knew there was a friend betrayal coming and it was clearly going to be either Gildas or Gram but I still liked the reveal.
+ I was genuinely surprised that Abbott Luvier was killed.
