Karen Azinger's The Poison Priestess was published in November 2012.
Karen Azinger is the author of The Silk & Steel Saga and The Assassin's Tear. Her debut book, The Steel Queen (the first book of The Silk & Steel Saga), was published in 2011.
Click here to visit the author's official website.
Information about The Poison Priestess:
While Kath and her companions chase the Mordant into the far north, the southern kingdoms erupt in Flames. The Lord Raven marches south, unleashing a holy war against Lanverness. Vastly outnumbered by a ruthless enemy, Queen Liandra spins desperate gambits in a dire struggle to save her kingdom.
New alliances and new awakenings hatch deeper levels of intrigue. The Oracle Priestess and the Lord Raven form a tenuous alliance, while deep in the Southern Mountains the Kiralynn monks stir, revealing more than prophecy.
Armies clash, battles rage, and cities fall, as lives, loves and crowns hang in the balance, but swords are not the only way to wage war. Treachery, deceit, assassins, and the power of seduction will face-off against steadfast courage, forgotten magic, and the power of truth. The Poison Priestess is the fourth book in this epic tale of Light versus Dark.
A REVIEW OF KAREN AZINGER'S THE POISON PRIESTESS
The Poison Priestess is the fourth book of The Silk & Steel Saga. It satisfyingly continues the complex and entertaining story, which started in The Steel Queen and then continued in The Flame Priest and The Skeleton King.
I have to say that I was very impressed by The Poison Priestess, because Karen Azinger clearly loves to write fantasy and is devoted to this series (the story arc which spans five books is quite an achivement, because in this series everything is connected and all the happenings mean something). If I had to use only one adjective to describe this book, it would be "amazing", because this book is simply amazing and highly entertaining.
Karen Azinger has a wonderful talent for surprising her readers and fans with fresh and exciting plot twists. As a big fan of fantasy literature, I can mention that it was easy for me to see that Karen Azinger loves writing and wants to write an unforgettable fantasy adventure which both entertains and surprises her readers. Her descriptive writing style adds lots of charm to this book, because readers are able to immerse themselves to the story by reading about well-constructed and vividly portrayed characters, exotic places and magic.
Because it's been a while since the two previous books (The Flame Priest and The Skeleton King) were published, here's a bit of information about what happened in them (these synopses are as spoiler-free as possible):
In The Flame Priest Queen Liandra faced the threat of the Red Horns. Kath and her companions travelled north and faced several problems along the way. Samson and Justin tried to find a way to free Coronth of the brutal religion of the Flame God. Duncan's secret was revealed. Steffan created an army and wanted to set it free. The Priestess got new responsibilities from the Dark Lord. The Mordant sowed hate and mistrust across the realm and made his way toward the north.
In The Skeleton King the events took place in the northern part of the world. Kath and her companions were on the steppes and faced several problems. Kath was poisoned. Blaine met the Painted Warriors who offered help. Duncan was captured. The Knight Marshal, the king and the Knights of the Octagon prepared for the war. The king suffered losses. The Mordant reclaimed his throne and started a war.
Here's a bit of information about what happens in this book:
In The Poison Priestess the events take place in the southern part of the world. Liandra fights a desperate fight to save her kingdom from the army of The Flame God. She also has to deal with things which are happening inside her kingdom, and she receives visitors from a distant place. Danly, Liandra's son, faces cruel justice and meets persons who want to "help" him. Steffan wages a brutal holy war against Lanverness and wants to take the throne away from Liandra. Stewart fights against Steffan's army. Jordan leaves the monastery. She sees horrible visions and doesn't know how to deal with them...
(That's all I'll write about the plot, because I want to avoid writing spoilers.)
In my opinion it's great that Karen Azinger has decided to write about the southern kingdoms. By writing solely about Liandra, Danly, the Priestess, Steffan and other characters, the author develops and deepens all of them. Each of these characters feels realistic and believable, which is very nice, because there are lots of fantasy series which tend to have lifeless characters (not to mention simple plots).
The Poison Priestess is a book of strong female characters. Although there are plenty of male characters and minor characters in this book, the main characters are the Priestess and Queen Liandra, because they're in the middle of several happenings.
This book raises the character of the Priestess into the spotlight. She is an interesting and mysterious character who uses sex, seduction and poisons to get what she wants. She shamelessly uses sex as a weapon and seduces men with her voluptous body. She's a ruthless and intelligent woman who wants to please the Dark Lord. The way she uses poisons to further her goals is simply brilliant, because she is the master of the art of poisoning and knows what she's doing. It was great to read more about the Priestess, because she's been one of my favourite characters in this series.
Queen Liandra is one of the most interesting and complex female characters in the fantasy literature, because she's a strong queen and a brilliant strategist who never gives up. Although Liandra is a queen, she's also a woman who has feelings and needs of her own. She has to maintain a public image of royalty and power, but at the same time she struggles with personal problems.
I enjoyed reading more about the Kiralynn monks, because they've been enigmatic people who have been keeping secrets for a long time. The mysterious monks offer help to persons, but they almost always hide their help in riddles and never fully reveal their knowledge to outsiders.
It's amazing how fluently and believably the author writes about honour, duty, treachery, destiny, love, hate, friendship and treason. The characters have to make difficult decisions, which will affect their lives - they have to think what is best for them and all the others, because every decision has consequences and some of the consequences may not be easy to live with.
The character development works well and each character has his/her own feelings. It's interesting to read about the personal problems of the characters and how they cope with difficult things. For example, reading about the personal tragedy of Queen Liandra was interesting and touching.
The different point of view characters make this series good and add complexity to the story arc. One of the best things about this series is that the author writes just as fascinatingly about the evil characters as she writes about the good characters (this is one of the reasons why I love The Silk & Steel Saga).
One of the most interesting things about this book is that the author explores if duty is more important than love when you're a queen. When Queen Liandra teaches Jemma and observes how she acts, the author writes about how they feel about duty and love - to Liandra duty comes first, but Jemma thinks that love is also important.
The Poison Priestess contains several deliciously macabre and brutal scenes, which will delight readers of adult fantasy. For example, the death by a fetish scene was amazing. I also enjoyed reading about what happened to Danly and how the evil characters wove new plots to get what they wanted.
The battle scenes are interesting, because Karen Azinger shows how brutal war can be. She writes about a holy war in which almost everything is allowed in order to annihiliate and conquer Lanverness (the holy war in this book is as nasty and immoral as possible, because Steffan knows what he wants and wants to please the Dark Lord as much as possible by doing dark deeds). It's great that the author writes about what happens to Stewart during the war, because it gives her a chance to reveal how ruthless and immoral the enemy is. His thoughts reveal how he feels about the war and what happens to his men.
The worldbuilding is excellent, because the author reveals more things about the southern kingdoms. The author has created a huge fantasy world and in this book the readers have a chance to read more about the different places from Lingard to Salmythra. It was nice to read about the new places and what happened in them.
Magic has been an important part of this series from the beginning and in this book the author writes more about it. Reading about magic and all things related to magic has always been of interest to me, so I was thrilled to read about these things. I think I'd better not write more about these things, because it wouldn't be fair to reveal everything in this review.
Karen Azinger writes entertainingly and boldly about sex and different kind of sexual situations. The scenes in which the Priestess has sex with her partners are highly erotic and sensual. I think that these scenes will please several readers of adult fantasy, because they're an important part of the story and the author uses them to illustrate how the Priestress behaves and how she makes men do what she wants. The sex scenes with Steffan are also handled well, because the character's evil nature is perfectly reflected in his appearance and manners (Steffan is a man who uses women for his own pleasure).
I love the amount of small details in The Poison Priestess. Just like the previous three books, this book contains lots of small and important details which are gradually revealed to the readers. I won't mention what these details are, but I think that readers will notice that Karen Azinger has an eye for certain details that are often overlooked by other authors.
In my opinion The Silk & Steel Saga is without a doubt one of the best traditional fantasy series ever written, because it's a shamelessly entertaining series and the story keeps on getting better and better with each new book (at this moment The Poison Priestess is the best book in this series). I'm sure that The Silk & Steel Saga - and especially The Poison Priestess - will remind readers of how good traditional fantasy can be at its best.
It's wonderful and also amazing that Karen Azinger has managed to keep all the plot threads in her hands. She handles multiple plot threads perfectly and adds more depth all the time. Her vision about the war between good and evil is stunningly entertaining and surprisingly complex when compared to other new traditional fantasy series (you don't normally find this kind of complexity in entertaining traditional fantasy books).
I'm sure that all fans of Karen Azinger will be more than pleased with this book, because it's everything you can expect from her - interesting characters, treachery, action, magic, surprises etc. I can hardly wait to read what happens in the final book, because when I read this book, I noticed that the story is building up towards a superb and powerful climax. I think that everybody who reads this book will want to know when the final book will be published, because the story is so good that you just want to keep on reading it.
Excellent entertainment!