The Mirador picks up two years after the end of The Virtu, which concluded a major story arc for Felix and Mildmay (though not without leaving some interesting threads dangling). But while the two characters were more beset by trouble in the previous two volumes, it is in this volume that it really becomes apparent how damaged they are. In particular, Felix. While he was afflicted by the madness resulting from being used to break the Virtu, it was no surprise to see him going through some difficulties. Here, however, its made clear that his issues go so much deeper and that they won’t simply go away because Malkar is dead. Felix (and Mildmay, as a result of the events in The Virtu) remain haunted by him and by other ghosts from their pasts. This nicely parallels the fact that literal hauntings and literal ghosts figure prominently into the plot of the book.

A notable difference from the previous two books is the addition of a third narrator: Mehitabel. Her chapters are very enjoyable but I also think that she was a very necessary addition because she’s doing a lot of the acting (both on and off stage, as it happens) while Felix (in particular) and Mildmay are reacting and being preoccupied with their personal inner demons. Mehitabel’s difficulties are primarily external, though we do learn more about her character as well. The most development, however, I think comes from surprising directions as we get to see new sides of Stephen and Shannon which makes them both a lot more sympathetic.

Love as thou wilt. That was the only thing that Blessed Elua asked of his scions. But when politics and the fate of realms enter into the picture that is not always such an easy command to follow.

Against his expectations as well as his wishes, Imriel finds himself in love with Sidonie, his own kin as well as the heir to the throne of Terre d’Ange. Worse, his love is reciprocated, Sidonie’s dislike for him having turned into desire. But even if Queen Ysandre has never blamed Imriel for being the son of traitors, she would never dream of allowing him to wed her daughter. Too many people in Terre d’Ange mistrust his motives and fear that he is truly his mother’s son, with great ambitions and a ruthless nature.

A thousand years ago, order defeated chaos as the Young God vanquished the Serpent. Though the victor died in the process, the Serpent was imprisoned, and out of the Young God’s followers grew an order of Knights sworn to make sure it remained that way. But now the king of Lys seeks to increase his might by turning to darker powers, and the servants of order have so successfully banished chaos that none of them have any real knowledge of how to fight its growing influence. Only Averil, heir to a duchy not yet under the king’s sway, and Gereint, a fatherless commoner with dangerous talents, are able to offer resistance as the Serpent strikes again. However, to stand any chance, they need to turn to magic that lies outside the orderly ways of the Knights of the Rose, magic that is wild and unpredictable.

As might be guessed from this short introduction, magic plays a considerable part in The Serpent and the Rose, and virtually all characters that appear in any notable capacity are magicians of one kind or another. This is not surprising if one is familiar with previous books by the author; though it is billed as a first novel, Kathleen Bryan is in fact a pseudonym for Judith Tarr, who often writes books where magic and magical beings play important roles within settings that always are well grounded in history. In this case, the story takes place in a time and place heavily inspired by medieval France. There’s a church that in some ways parallels the Christian Church, though in other ways it is notably different, and the geography of Lys and its neighbours is similar to that of the real world. As always, Tarr’s knowledge of history shows itself in the small touches that makes a created world convincing without burdening it with too much detail. Equally typical of Tarr is the clean, elegant prose, and she has a particular knack for writing about magic in a way that makes it seem perfectly natural and believable.

A new book from Guy Gavriel Kay is always a treat, and a rare one at that, as there’s always quite a few years between them. Given this, one tends to build up fairly high expectations, which isn’t always fair to the book (or the author) as these expectations often end up being heavily based in one’s own preferences as a reader. First impressions of a book are particularly vulnerable to comparisons between what is and what was expected. No wonder, perhaps, that this review has already been tweaked twice. First I reworked it slightly based on some feedback that led me to conclude that I had not made it clear enough where my tastes and expectations interfered with my understanding of the story. And then I did some further work on it once Elio finished the book and we had had a chance to discuss it.

One might now wonder what inspired this introductory paragraph. To some extent, its a caveat regarding my impressions of Ysabel and the way they come through in this review. It might be deduced from this that I did not find Ysabel to be my favourite among Kay’s novels. Having said that, however, I do consider it a very good book, and some readers may in fact find it preferable to some of Kay’s other novels. It all comes down to which aspects of his writing one prefers. For my own part, I am one of those Kay fans who dearly loves the Fionavar Tapestry. In fact, if asked to rank Kay’s books, I would put them first, even though they do have their flaws. But this comes down to my favourite aspect of Kay’s writing being the intense emotions, and nowhere are they stronger or rawer than in the Tapestry. In later novels, some of that intensity is traded away for increased polish.

To begin with, I would advise anyone considering Mélusine to also pick up the sequel, The Virtu, and read the two back-to-back. My understanding is that they were originally intended as one book, and while I enjoyed both of them when reading them a few months apart, I think they would read even better treated as a single book as together they form a distinct story arc where what is now the second volume brings the conclusion of many plot threads opened in the first.

However, in the end that is not how they were published, and with that in mind, this review attempts to focus on Mélusine. In it we are introduced to the two characters who alternate as the first-person narrators of the story; Felix Harrowgate and Mildmay the Fox. Felix is a wizard of the Mirador, the school of magic (note, we’re not talking school in the Harry Potter-sense here; in the setting wizards are simply trained within different traditions of magic) that is most prominent in the city of Mélusine. Mildmay is a cat-burglar whose home is the Lower City, seedy underside of Mélusine. As narrators, they have very distinct and dissimilar voices, and as characters they don’t appear to have much at all in common. At least not to start with. However, as the story progresses, this changes somewhat.