Description
Engaging, immersive, and impossible to put down.
Penkarrion refuses a marriage her father has arranged, and flees, with some briefly-borrowed-sword-threatening and long, anhungered journeying, to enlist in a mercenary band; what Italian historians would call Condotierri. There she finds a new family, as it were, loyalties, and validation of her own intrinsic independent decencies.
|We encounter a nigh-unto-overwhelming plethora of place names, no maps, and constant movement; movement all too often under miserable conditions. Our heroine’s life is one of service, including domestic barracks duties, constant attention to details, and incessant surprises. Essentially a beginning enlistee’s life, viewed from the inside.
By this other-directed and not yet understood existence, Penkarrion is shaped and matured, scarred and seasoned. She loses friends and is repeatedly wounded, both physically and mentally.
She resists the open sexuality of the band, being, apparently, asexual, though not uncaring of the bondings of others.
For the reader, there is preparation for an expanded scope of existence and performance woven into the developing plot. Even the protagonist’s asexuality is left open to speculation and possibility.||I found myself missing an entire night’s sleep with this fever dream of a book! As sequels are inevitable, I recommend buying this initial adventure //now//.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.