Berg, Carol -- The Soul Mirror

Follows a few years after The Spirit Lens. The plot to destroy the kingdom is slowly turning out be a plot to destroy the universe -- I think. This book is narrated by Anne de Vernase, the daughter of the evil sorcerer who got away at the end of the first book. Now she's been summoned to the capital, where, as you might imagine, her social prospects are on the dry side. Also, her mother has gone mad and her sister has been murdered. The plot speeds up from there.

The neat thing about this structure is that the protagonist has no reason to trust the protagonists of the first book, and vice versa. Nor does the reader necessarily know better: Dante, the rogue mage with a heart of copper-at-best, may well have thrown in with the bad guys. Whoever they are. Including or excluding Anne's father. There's plenty of suspicion to go around, plus poison, ghosts, blood, curses, blood curses, and plotters using other plotters. But -- in keeping with the structure -- all comes to a triumphant conclusion, leaving open only the fate of the universe for the final volume.


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