This is
historical fantasy like I’ve never read before. When a ship wreck leaves
teenagers Awa, a Moorish slave, Omorose, her harem girl master, and Halim, a
eunuch, stranded on what is probably the Rock of Gibralter, they are found,
imprisoned, and trained by a necromancer. His attendants- including his
mistress- are animated corpses ranging from the recently dead to skeletons and
they prevent any escape. In the end, only Awa is left alive as the
necromancer’s protégé. He leaves her for ten years to await a horrible fate,
which she hopes to avert by finding the necromancer’s book- which could be
anywhere.
Set around
1500, Awa has three strikes against her as she searches Europe for the book: she’s Moorish, she’s a
lesbian, and she’s a necromancer. The Spanish Inquisitors don’t like any of
those things, and neither does the general population of the time. But thankfully not everyone has these
prejudices, and she finds a few friends who help her along the way as she
searches graveyards, fights a demon, is hunted by Omorose and an Inquisitor,
and gets caught up in battles.
I really
enjoyed the story, but I suspect not all will. There is lots of vividly
described gore, lots of sex (including with the dead), and most of the characters
can’t utter a sentence without swear words in it, most often the F bomb and
frequently the verboten C bomb. But watching the characters grow- especially
Awa- through the story is engaging and it’s a fine comrades-in-arms chanson de
geste. A few of the characters are plucked from history, such as Paracelsus,
and Awa’s friend the artist and mercenary Niklaus Manuel Deutsch, and that,
along with reference to the rulers and battles of the time, allow the reader to
have a sense of the time and place. I stayed up late reading this one.
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