REVIEW: Dreams Made Flesh by Anne Bishop

Series: Black Jewels Series

Author's Website

Summary:

This book is a collection of four short stories which fills the gap in the Black Jewels Trilogy books. Here, we see the origin of the magic, how Saetan lost his third child, how Lucivar met and married his wife, and what happened to Daemon and Jaenelle after Queen of the Darkness. In this sense, this book should be read after the Black Jewels Trilogy in order to appreciate the novellas better.

Comments:

I'll try not to include any spoilers, as I don't want to ruin the reading experience for those who haven't read this book yet. (I've come a long way from the time I since first blogged.)

One good point about this book is that it fills in the holes made by the Black Jewels Trilogy books and rounds out the entire picture of the series for the readers. However, I'm a bit miffed by the blurb (back cover summary), which is misleading because if I remember right, it talks about "three men, sworn enemies". These three men are Lucivar, Daemon and Saetan, and the words "sworn enemies" is not very descriptive of their real relationship, in addition to the fact that if they are indeed enemies at all, it was of a very superficial kind.

(The reason for my feelings was because I hadn't read any of the books yet at that point. In fact, I was scoping out all the blurbs of the books and deciding if I want to read this series or not. When I saw the blurb of Dreams Made Flesh, I thought the three men would fight over Jaenelle.)

That said, my favorite novella in this book is Lucivar's story. I find that I relate better to Marian than to Jaenelle, maybe because we get to see things from Marian's point of view and her thoughts and feelings. Theirs was an enjoyable romance, and it was interesting to see Lucivar finally falling for a woman he longs to cherish, so different from his violent feelings toward the queens in Tereille (when he was still a slave).

With regard to Daemon's and Jaenelle's story, I like knowing how things ended (or came together) for them. I think it's so romantic the way Daemon cared for her recovery and the scene of their wedding ceremony was priceless. The only thing I have against this story is the external plot wherein some deluded woman thought to lure Daemon away from Jaenelle and get him for herself. Apart from the fact that I think this subplot is rather weak, it didn't even have any bearing on Daemon's and Jaenelle's story. They still would've gotten together in the absence of this deluded woman and her antics. The subplot though, serves another purpose, which to reveal would be a spoiler. All right! For those who want to know, it concerns Daemon.

Overall, it's good to read this book, if only to complete the knowledge gaps created in the first trilogy books.

Book Rating: 3.0