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Shadow's Bane
by
Karen Chance
urban fantasy in a Kindle edition that was published by Berkley on July 31, 2018 and has 524 pages.
Explore it on Goodreads or Amazon
Other books by this author which I have reviewed include Curse the Dawn, Death's Mistress, Hunt the Moon, Chicks Kick Butt, Fury's Kiss, "The Gauntlet", "The Queen's Witch", "House at Cobb End", Midnight's Daughter, Claimed by Shadow, Touch the Dark, Embrace the Night, Tempt the Stars, "In Vino Veritas", Updating Pritkin, Reap the Wind,, Ride the Storm, "Black Friday", Brave the Tempest, Masks, Shatter the Earth, Queen's Gambit
Fourth in the Dorina Basarab urban fantasy series revolving around a time-traveling dhampir. You don’t need to have read the previous stories in either of Chance’s series, Dorina Basarab or Cassandra Palmer series, but your understanding will be richer if you do.
My Take
It’s a time-traveling story that flips between Mircea’s Venice of 1458 and today’s events. Luckily, Chance provides epigrams at the start of the chapters to inform us as to the year.
Chance uses Mircea’s and Dory/Dorina’s past and today as the background for all the action taking place in Shadow’s Bane, evolving Dory’s character arc. With the barrier coming apart, Chance is using first person protagonist point-of-view from Dory’s perspective with Dory realizing a whole lot of things, including the origin of her “fits” and how Dorina gets loose. This new state of being opens up a lot of conflicts for Dory (and Dorina), and we learn the reasons for the events of their past.
The Venice years are fascinating as it provides the background for Mircea’s early, poor years as a vampire with Horatiu along for the ride as well as Dory/Dorina’s childhood. A childhood that doesn’t last long as Mircea fears the increasing conflict between Dory’s human half and her vampire half. It also provides its own mystery with vampires disappearing, the solving of which is part of the praetor’s price.
Naturally, Chance includes background on being a vampire and the supposed safety of a vampire-territory-free Venice. Uh-huh.
These inner issues revolve around the slave trade from Faerie — it’s not just America that has to deal with people trying to slip into the US. Chance also points out that, while the fey kidnap humans, humans “do it right back”. It’s a huge problem that also provides reasons for the events in Shadow’s Bane.
This war with Faerie has opened up a lot of new opportunities in the vampire world. But it doesn’t negate the opportunities for the trolls when they struggle with their own fight club. Using slaves.
Dory’s (and Claire’s) house is something of a Keystone Kops residence with a crazy assortment of housemates, which include Ray and his weak family, the fey bodyguards hanging around the house, and Chance has quite a bit of fun with the Light Fae learning about the human world. Food and coffee are a new experience, the occasional superiority of human tech over fae magic, the true nature of “women’s work”, and more. Then there’s the fey guard helping the neighbors (and trying to hide it) — too cute. Yet another, small, social experiment, involves that “lively” chessboard.
Chance does provide a back history on what makes Claire tick. The back history on Louis-Cesare is just nasty — that boy is just too honest for words. Oh. Boy. Nature’s love for Caedmon is another crack-up. “Dory”’s description of Burbles is a crack-up, too, what with his overwhelming enthusiasm for all things Dory, especially considering what Mircea’s family have felt towards Dory all these years.
We get more back history on the “war” between trolls and the fey when the young troll is dying of his wounds, which leads to information on the good and the bad of troll culture.
I do enjoy the snark — “my hairstyle is what I call drove-with-the-top-down”.
It’s primarily action-packed but definitely driven by its characters and their travails with all those minor conflicts that include Louise-Cesare and Dory’s love life; Ray’s need to keep his family alive; the truth about power; the gruesome need for a secret ingredient that makes me gag; the parallel body thefts in that early time and now; the amalgamation of the various Senates and how it’s screwed with the Senators understanding their power rankings; Dory’s love-hate feelings for Mircea, and his feelings about Dory/Dorina’s survival; Efridis’ desire to save those she considers worthy of Faerie; and, more. Yep, there is a whole heckuva lot happening in Shadow’s Bane.
The Story
Life has gotten stranger. Even stranger than Dory being appointed to the Vampire Senate, for it seems that that fey wine has broken the wall that keeps Dory and Dorina separate.
A wall inflicted on her by a desperate father faced with a looming deadline.
All of which is a minor matter when compared to all the powerful, magic weapons being flung about and the slave trade from Faerie to earth.
The Characters
The tiny five-hundred-some-year-old Dory Basarab (in today) was appointed a senator in Fury’s Kiss, 3, and is on the Senate’s anti-smuggling squad. The fey have given Dory a nickname, amghǫffði. Dory’s other half is Dorina, her crazed vampire half who had been walled off in her mind back in the mid-1400s. Stinky is Dory’s half-Duergar/half Brownie son, who loves Star Wars.
Dory shares a big, old Victorian self-aware house with Claire Lachesis, her best friend, a strict vegan who is a part-elvish, part human who manifests as a null witch, half-dragon Dark Fey princess. Claire has a son, Aiden, with Heidar, the Light Fey Blarestri fairy king’s half-human son. Aiden is supposedly protected by the Rune of Langgarn, captured at great cost. Gessa, a small troll and one of Olga’s relatives, is Aiden’s au pair. The house had been built by Captain Pip, a retired ship’s captain and Claire’s uncle who shouldn’t have known what he did.
Fellow roommates, er, housemates, include Sven and Ymsi. They may be twin troll brothers, but Sven is into weaponry and fixable (maybe) tech while Ymsi is fascinated with growing things. Bulsi, a.k.a. Wart, is the young troll they saved, sort of.
Claire’s fey guards include Hemming, a.k.a. “Soini”, who needs to think before he speaks; Reiðarr feels he has something to prove, per the nine challenges of the Fey — idiot; and, Olfun.
Mircea Basarab, in the 1450s is a newly turned vampire with no family and formidable mind powers. Horatiu is the tutor/servant turned on his death bed by Mircea. An Horatiu who loved Dorina more than his master. Radu “‘Du”, a crazy vampire, is Mircea’s younger brother, the Sire of Louis-Cesare, and the Senate’s mad scientist. Gunther-the-Gorgeous is Radu’s “bodyguard”. Vlad, yep, that Vlad, is their older, evil brother.
The very honorable Louis-Cesare, a first-level master vampire with a power called the Veil and a Senator, is a demon with a sword, and madly in love with Dory. He’s lousy about money, though. Dory cannot figure out where he got his honorable side! Christine had been a mistake, a revenant, one used to manipulate Louis-Cesare for years (Midnight’s Daughter, 1).
Ray is Dorina’s. A former seedy nightclub owner and now a weak master vampire trying to save his family. Cheung, a pirate and Senator, had been Ray’s boss.
The Vampire Senate . . .
. . . is the ruling bodies of the vampire world, split into six assorted territories, including North America and Europe where Anthony is in charge. Only, the threat of war with Faerie has created an uneasy alliance among the six. Kit Marlowe is the consul’s pit bull and chief of security who hates Dory. Geminus had been a member of the Vampire Senate in North America. Elyas has a ballroom. Vincent is the one Dory calls “Burbles”.
Lucilla, a.k.a. the Lady, is the vampire praetor, a leading magistrate in that long ago Venice, who employs Micrea. She also allows the lone vampires to feed in Venice. Jacomelo is one of Lucilla’s allies, and he’s lost his son.
The great houses of healing include Piloti, Lachesis, and Jalena. Others Mircea tried include Zoan of Napoli and the duplicitous Abramalin.
Today, Kathy Samuelson is one of the night docs for the Brooklyn on-call service. Her uncle is Aaron Samuelson of Samuleson & Todd.
The Dark Fey, a.k.a. . . .
. . . the Svarestri, who use earth as their element also include the trolls. Efridis, Caedmon’s sister, is Aeslinn’s estranged queen. Their son is the evil Æusbrand, the Ice Prince. And their combined ambition is for them to rule all the Fey, although Aeslinn is counting on the gods for help.
The trolls are . . .
. . . considered Dark Fey but their element is fire. Olga, a fashion plate in sequins and satin, is also the widow of one of Faerie’s most notorious weapons runners, is a leader for a faction of ogres while running a combination beauty salon and “what looked like the back room of Soldier of Fortune”. Her nephew has been taken. Sten, a troll, is part of the battle. Fin is an itty-bitty mountain troll. Magdar is one of the slaves used in the fight club. The Elders, a group of trolls with power, include Geirröd, a.k.a. White Hair, and Trym, a.k.a. Gravel Face. Curly, a.k.a. Meredith and Squirrelly Curly, is a backstabbing theatre owner. Big Blue is a fighting troll sought after by the mages. Fairfax is one of the sea people whose child is being held hostage.
Thussers are Norwegian fjord fey. The tale of Princess Alfhildambhǫfði is a cautionary troll tale. Bothvarr had been one of the rare vargr.
The Light Fey include . . .
. . . the overly flirtatious, conniving Caedmon, the king of the Blarestri (one of the three great Light Fey houses) is Heidar’s father. Which makes him Claire’s soon-to-be father-in-law.
The Circles are . . .
. . . divided into the Black Circle of black-magic using mages and the Silver Circle, who supposedly use white-magic. The Corps are supernatural police made up of mages. James, a Silver Circle war mage, sells protection wards. Part of his team includes Tomkins. Rufus is James’ dad. Jean is James’ wife, and they have two daughters, Janis and Lakshmi.
Stan’s Auto Emporium is a junkyard/car dealership that provides really, really cheap transport. Stan is connected to Roberto, a zero-chill boss who owns half of Brooklyn and is a were gang boss.
Dory and Claire’s neighbors include a commune across the street, Mrs Nedermeyer and her cats, and Mrs Epstein. Yggdrasil is the mythological world tree. Ley lines, a.k.a. rivers of lightning, allow for instant travel. Spriggans have been used as spies by vargr, who can throw their consciousness into other creatures. The Club is a super-expensive vampire hotel. “Blondie” (it’s his Lamborghini), a.k.a. Trevor, and “Purple Hair” are bounty hunters. Richard Kim is a reporter.
The Cover and Title
The cover has a skyline in browns with a leather-and-jean clad Dory kneeling atop a skyscraper amidst other buildings, holding a gun as she looks downwards. At the very top is an info blurb in white with the author’s name immediately below it in a pale blue. Under that is a testimonial in white. The title is a white, ragged script angling across Dory’s lower half, hovering above the series info, in burgundy, that’s “engraved” into the slab that Dory is kneeling on.
The title is Shadow’s Bane, a shadow of distress ranging over the centuries and the current supernatural society.
