Hitting the Books

Ingeld’s Daughter, by Carla Nayland.

You can read it here. Here is the synopsis from her website:

Ingeld’s Daughter is an adventure, a love story, and a stirring tale of rebellion, civil war, the price of justice and the economics of taxation and trade.

Irinya is Ingeld’s daughter, rightful heir to the Lordship of Carlundy. Her cousin Radwulf usurped the lordship after her father’s death, married her by force to legitimise his weaker claim, and has held her effectively a prisoner for twelve years. When Gyrdan, a stranger on unknown business, escapes from interrogation by Radwulf’s guards and takes refuge in her chamber, she conceals him partly out of sympathy and partly out of a desire to thwart Radwulf wherever possible. But, by working together, they find they are able to escape.

Now Irinya is on the run with a stranger she has only just met, whom she dare not trust and whose history and purpose she does not know. She must decide which is the greater danger, Radwulf’s soldiers and allies pursuing her, or Gyrdan at her side. Exiled in a strange land, she is determined to oust Radwulf and reclaim her rightful position as Lady of Carlundy. But to do this she must somehow enlist support from the radically different cultures of prosperous Billand and the fiercely independent clans of the Black Hills, and convince the people of Carlundy to fight for her and for a better life.

Her relationship with Gyrdan develops from suspicion into friendship and slowly blossoms into love. But Gyrdan has a dark secret in his past, and when it catches up with them Irinya finds herself in a terrible trap. Her courage and integrity will be crucial if she is to overthrow Radwulf - but will they also force her to order the death of the man she loves?

First off I want to say I really enjoyed the book. I started reading it around 1030 Wednesday night and finished around 4pm the next day. It’s a well-written, fast-paced read with plenty of action (plenty of action–I don’t think the plot took a single breath once it got going), romance, and humor :). Carla has created an extrordinarily realistic society and her characters are deep and multifaceted.

I have only a few nitpicky comments:

1. There were some anachronistic phrases such as “Indian summer,” “Junoesque,” and “a liner surrounded by tugs” that had the unfortunate result of jolting me out of the story for a moment.
2. Corin. By the end of the the book I was rather hoping he would get killed. Then they could avenge him, but at least he’d be out of their hair.
3. Written-out dialects are often very hard to read (tho’ Carla did a superb job with them), especially for people like me who don’t actually read the words, but rather “chunk” sections and take them in all at once. (Had to read Riddley Walker in college. Written in total phonetics. Drove me nuts!)
4. I felt that the trial scene went on just a touch too long. Granted, it was the crux of the story, but I was starting to skim by the time the assassin finally showed up.

Two other quick thoughts:
1. Not a bad thing, but boy, does Carla put her characters through the wringer. Torture, rape, bogs, bottomless pits, caves, burning at the stake…I was exhausted just reading about it
2. I apologize greatly, but Gyrdan kept reminding me of Strider the Ranger (aka Aragorn), especially in the beginning. For a while I actually thought his deep dark secret was that he was the last of the ancient bloodline, the one who could rightfully claim the kingship.

Bottom line? I liked it muchly. Definitely recommend it. Click on over to Carla’s website and read it (the nice thing about e-books is you can sneak reading time in when you’re supposed to be doing other, more “productive” things on the computer )