Sinclair, Alison -- Lightborn
Second book of the country where half the population can't survive
sunlight and the other half can't survive without it. Despite the
title, this book is divided between Lightborn viewpoint characters and
the Darkborn Lady Telmaine of the first book. The difference, it turns
out, is that the Darkborn have a Regency-I-guess formal society, with
all the familiar trimmings, plus a soupcon of socially unacceptable
magic. Whereas the Lightborn are all over magic -- understandably, as
they need it to survive each night -- and also have a formal society
of advancement through assassination, at least in the noble families.
Result: any given Lightborn noble has been shot, poisoned, and
dismembered any number of times, and healed (they hope) just as often.
Result, and I'm pretty sure the author intended this explicitly: they
are all batfuck insane. Murderous paranoid psychopaths with a creamy
posttraumatic filling. The Darkborn who have to deal with them aren't
much better (the spymaster is a piece of work, and I do mean
well-written). Against this background, murderous paranoid
psychopathic plots play out. We don't learn a hell of a lot about the
underlying Shadowborn plot, but that's the title of the third book, so
I look forward to the conclusion.
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