Daughter of the Blood (The Black Jewels)

Book Details
Author: Anne Bishop
Published: March 1st, 1998
Pages: 375 (Paperback)
Genre: Fantasy

"And the Blood shall sing to the Blood."

"Daughter of the Blood" is the first in a nine book series by Anne Bishop called "The Black Jewels" series. Taking a bit of a different approach to fantasy, Bishop creates a world around the Darkness and women. Yes, I said it. Women. As in, Women get a chance to be awesome bad asses (and the awful bad guys) in Fantasy too.

Let me explain kind of how this is set up. (Well, as best as I can, anyway.)

The Blood are beings with an interesting magic set up. First of all, the different levels of power determine the caste/hierarchy one finds oneself in. The Blood start off with a base power rank and each rank has a different Jewel ranging from White (the least powerful) to Black (the most powerful). There is a helpful chart at the front of the book to tell you the ranks and hierarchy/castes.

The story is about Jaenelle, but also Saetan, Daemon and Lucivar. And, yes, those are their names. Jaenelle is the culmination of prophecy and 700 some-odd years of matriarchal oppression. If you read the back cover of my copy of the book it tells you that three sworn enemies know that "Whoever controls the Queen controls the Darkness." However, they're not really "sworn" enemies in the strictest sense. They are at times enemies, but that's kind of difficult to explain and doesn't necessarily become that complicated until the end of the book beginning of the second.

Thoughts
The first time I read this book I was 19 and living in Shawnee, Oklahoma (because of poor choices I made as a teenager, but that's neither here, nor there). One of the people I was living with was reading it and I happened to read the back cover. He actually tried to dissuade me from reading it. And because I care about YOU, the collective readers, I will give you fair warning as well.

Trigger Warning: Graphic sexual violence.

Unfortunately, as I have often found to be the case, most "strong women" characters are made that way through sexual assault. This is not to say that Jaenelle wasn't a strong character before.

One of the things I loved about this book (and the series) was that women were in charge of the world. The world was dependent on women. It was also a very different kind of fantasy to me. Prior to reading it I hadn't been very into fantasy books. At least not new ones. I had always loved "The Chronicles of Narnia" and "The Lord of the Rings," but had never really be interested in other kinds of fantasy. And, to be honest, I still struggle to find fantasy I enjoy.

So when I found this series, I was over the moon in love with it. (Still am.) It was different for quite a few reasons, not just women being prominent characters (both good and bad).

First of all, the world is ruled by the Matriarchy. Whereas the real world is ruled by the Patriarchy. Being ruled by a Matriarchy isn't necessarily a good thing. I was glad that they didn't make all the women perfect and good. That would've made for a boring story. Women have the capability of being just as evil as men, which I think is something that gets lost in our movements (but that's for a different type of blog).

Secondly, the Jewels were new. I love the descriptions of powers and how they work. I love the different types of Jewels and the different types of people. There are so many interesting worlds in this series and I really wish she had written about more of them. There are people of colour! Granted, Jaenelle is literally a blonde, white girl and the people of colour are a lighter shade of brown, but it is better than what I usually have to settle for.

Thirdly, Anne Bishop literally named her three main male leads Saetan, Daemon and Lucivar. How could I not fall in love with a book (or series) that has three personifications of the Devil as leads? I mean, really.

I don't like that a woman's power rests on how her hymen is broken. That bothered me. Still bothers me. Like, I get it. I understand where she was going with this, but it makes the strong female characters reliant on the men around them. (So, like the real world?) I also just don't like that every other story I read has rape in it. I know that statistically, it happens all the time. And, as women, sexual assault is something we fear more than death itself, so I understand why it turns up in stories a lot (I am guilty of this in my own writing). However, do we have other ways to show that women are strong with out harming them?

Even though it is a story about a woman, a lot of the action is centered around the men. It's not a perfect story.

Rating
I gave this book a 5 out of 5 on Goodreads.

For our scale I'd give it a 10 out of 10. Out of all the fantasy stories I've read, this one still captures my interest and my imagination. And I love re-reading it.

I would give it an R rating for sexual violence, general violence, gaslighting/emotional abuse.

This book is not for children, people who don't like fantasy or strictly religious people.

I would suggest this book to almost anyone. I love the whole series and have read almost everything by Anne Bishop. She has a such a unique take on the Fantasy genre (at least in my opinion), that I find her work is generally worth read. (Though a series by her I WOULDN'T suggest is "The Others," but that's going to have to wait for another book review.)