2006 fantasy, second of its series. Princess Andromeda (she prefers
"Andie") has her mother Cassiopeia's brains, but not her beauty, and
is determined to be useful rather than just locked away until a
marriage alliance is needed. But that brings its own hazards.
Not only is there more going on than she realises, not everyone
in the palace is on her side. And being her mother's new assistant
when it comes to trade negotiation time may also cause people who'd
dismissed her to classify her as a threat…
There are definite acts to this book: the introduction, up to the
point that Andie becomes the latest virgin sacrifice to the dragon
that's been ravaging the land; her escape and cross-country journey to
find out more; and the resolution. That first act sometimes drags for
the series reader, because in the last book we found out about the
Tradition that shapes people's stories into standard patterns, and
there's little mention of it here. During the journey things work out
rather better, not least because Andie works out that swearing
blood-brotherhood will stop the Tradition from making her fall in love
with her rescuer; on the other hand there's an obvious loophole which
would surely be familiar to most readers of the book even if Andie has
no reason to think of it for herself.
But it's the third act that really shines for me, first because of the
dragons, and second because we get an informed view of how a Tradition
can be generated: the first Ragged Company that threw off a usurper
was mostly displaced noblemen's retinues with a leavening of militia,
but the second one had some untrained but angry peasants, and by the
fourth situation that could fit into that pattern it had become
Traditional that a group of unexpected fighters with one experienced
leader could get up to a competent level of fighting ability in short
order.
After all that, the ending fell a little flat for me; in particular
what happened to the Ungodly seemed very sketched-in, as though an
expository scene setting up their final moments had never been
written. But overall I enjoy the wry humour from a writer who's
certainly committed her share of fantasy cliché before now.