This month for Book Club, we read “Kushiel’s Dart” by Jacqueline Carey. First of all, when we select books for the club, we usually try and pick relatively short books, as we only have a month to read them. I suppose no one asked when this one was nominated and when it showed up in the mail from Amazon, I was shocked to pick up an epic book that was a whopping 900+ pages. But, I like to read so I got going.

To be honest, I was about 50 pages in before I started caring about the book much and was about 200 before I was really hooked. It takes a while to set up the story when you’re writing a book this large I suppose. But once it got me, it got me good.

Kushiel’s Dart is the story of a young woman, Phedré, who is one of the chosen of the gods. She was pricked by the dart of Kushiel, one of the angels in their religious pantheon, who is characterized as the one who brings redemption to his followers through punishment. This means that Phedré is cursed and blessed as Kushiel’s Chosen to experience pleasure through pain. She is trained from a young age to be a servant of Naamah, the Angel who served their Chosen, Elua, by sleeping with those necessary to keep Elua safe. (Its hard to sum up a fantasy civilization’s mythology in a few sentences!)

The basic premise of their religion is “Love as thou wilt”. As Phedré is a servent of Naamah, basically, Phedre is trained to be a prostitute of god. However, her patron and mentor DeLauney also trains her to be a spy. Through the story, she encounters plots, riddles, betrayals, and adventures galore. She finds herself in all kinds of exciting circumstances and interesting places. What starts as a bizarre and slightly smutty book becomes one of daring and intrigue. I honestly didn’t think I’d like the book, but ended up loving it. Phedré is a cunning and brave heroine that is really enjoyable to follow.

Seriously though, who designed this cover? It’s just awful.

A number of people in the book club have said they don’t want to read it on the bus because of the cover. But you know the old saying, don’t judge a book by its cover.

I was pretty far in the book before I learned this was part of a series. Often, I find that books in series are frustrating because they leave you hanging on the story. They want you to pick up the next book, so they don’t wrap things up for you. The Game of Thrones series is really terrible about doing this. So, I was really thrilled to come to the end of this book and find the story nicely wrapped up. Sure, there were some things left that made me excited to pick up the next one (which I’ve done), but I didn’t have to. I knew where everyone was at the end and what they were about and it was very comforting.

If you’re looking for an epic story of politics, sex, love, war, betrayal, and adventure. This is a good one. You’ll have a nice view into this fantasy world, traveling to numerous countries, seeing different peoples, watching dark prophesies unfold. You’ll read about a beautiful civilization full of structure with the D’Angelines, be stuck in a snowy wilderness among the Skaldi, and escape to have exciting adventures at sea, challenging the Master of the Straits and visiting another far off land before returning to a home where everything has changed.

This read is all across the map, in a really satisfying way. The reviews across the book club were all good. People enjoyed this read.