The
General’s Bride
Author: M.F. Sullivan
Publisher: Painted Blind Publishing
American
release date: August 14, 2019
Format/Genre/Length: Paperback/Sci Fi/LGBTQ/293 pages
Overall Personal Rating: ★★★★★
After the debacle in Jerusalem,
Dominia finds herself in a place between worlds, walking with Lazarus and
Valentinian to Cairo. As if that isn’t strange enough, every night, she finds
and enters her father’s study and converses with the Hierophant as if that were
the most natural thing in the world to do. However, there is an unnatural
element at work here, a chimera that is coming to resemble Dominia’s late wife
Cassandra more and more, to Dominia’s dismay. Is she upset because this
creature is an insult to Cassandra’s memory, or is that she fears she won’t be
able to resist the temptation of well-remembered flesh should she come to
resemble Cassandra more strongly than she can bear?
Every morning, a knock comes on
the Hierophant’s study door as Valentinian comes to retrieve Dominia. He
returns her to the journey she is on with him and Lazarus. Sometimes she just
looks at him, unable to believe he and Basil are one and the same. Dominia’s
conversations with her father are both confusing and enlightening. Although she
doesn’t entirely trust him, she doesn’t entirely distrust him either. And he’s
oddly more forthcoming on many subjects than her enigmatic traveling companions. Sometimes she thinks Lazarus couldn’t give her a straight answer if
his life depended on it. Her father warns her that her desire to resurrect
Cassandra is not practical and that she is being lied to, and sometimes she
just doesn’t know which way to turn – except
away from the creature which seems to resemble her late wife more and
more.
Dominia isn’t sure who to believe
or who to trust—everyone has their own agenda, including her. She wants to get
to Cairo to retrieve Cassandra’s diamond from Miki Soto. Lazarus and
Valentinian claim they want to save mankind by sending the martyrs to the far
away planet of Acetia. But how can it be right to condemn an entire people for
the actions of a few? Did the Hierophant come from there? There is evil on both
sides, but which is the true evil?
Dominia’s journey to Cairo will be
a long one, and certainly not straightforward as she finds herself in strange
places, among strange people and begins to doubt everyone and everything she
knows. If they are her friends, why aren’t they with her, to save her? Why does
it sometimes seem as though her Father has her best interests at heart? It seems
as though Dominia can only rely on herself, but will she be enough to see her
through what is to come?
The General’s Bride is every bit as riveting as The Hierophant’s Daughter as Dominia
continues her journey to Cairo to retrieve the remains of her wife, held in a
diamond which was stolen by Miki Soto. This is indeed a mindblowing story of
people and worlds and forces beyond the ken of most of us, forces that defy and
shape the very laws of physics and reality. Dominia has choices to make, most
of them not easy ones, and she learns that her own wishes aren’t necessarily in
her own best interest and aren’t necessarily the right path to take. People
aren’t necessarily what she thought they were, and there is indeed a blurred
line betwixt good and evil. Even the Hierophant straddles that line, and it’s
impossible to hate him as unequivocally as she thought she did for sometimes he
says the most remarkable things.
Although I love Dominia, my
favorite character is still the Hierophant, so I rejoiced every time he
appeared. M.F. Sullivan’s writing voice is superb. She blows your mind with
descriptions of metaphysical worlds and ideas, asking questions which make you
truly think about what you know or think you know. Her characters are so
well-drawn that you feel as if you’ve known them forever as she sucks you into
the trajectory of their lives. I wish this journey could go on forever, but I
know there’s only one more book, and I’m fearful that it will contain the death
of the Hierophant. Nonetheless, I look forward to it and I’ll hope for the best
until something else happens.
This book is every bit as good as
the first one. I highly recommend it.
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