Daughter of Mystery by Heather Rose Jones

In the sequel, The Mystic Marriage, we see this web of women woven ever more strongly: bound as colleagues, patrons, friends, lovers, and kindred both by blood and choice.

When disaster strikes, the nuns of Saint Orisul’s offer sanctuary both for body and mind, and in the final crisis Barbara’s ties to an ex-lover bring crucial assistance. Her inheritance gives Margerit entrée to a new social world in Rotenek, but it is the female allies she finds there who teach her how to use it for her own purposes. In the capitol of Rotenek, Margerit is welcomed by a loose community of female scholars, from fashionable upper-class dilettantes to hard-headed working-class women hoping for a better life. A spinster aunt lends the orphaned Margerit the cover of her respectability, seeing in Margerit the opportunity to finally seize her own small measure of independence. The developing romance with Barbara is only the most obvious source of strength. Men’s actions may precipitate both Margerit’s hazards and opportunities, but it’s among women that she finds the allies to achieve her goals. But those paths, as well as her developing talent for thaumaturgy thrust her into the center of Alpennian politics and soon she and Barbara must flee an accusation of treason.īeyond the straightforward mind-candy of the adventure (though I like to hope it’s in the “artisanal dark chocolate” category of mind-candy) one underlying theme began to pervade not only Daughter of Mystery but the initial sketches for its sequels: the networks and communities that women build in the face of a society that excludes them from the formal structures of power and agency. When her godfather unexpectedly leaves her a fortune-including a mysterious bodyguard named Barbara-the world opens up along paths she never expected. Set in the fictitious country of Alpennia in the early 19th century, Margerit Sovitre is resigned to abandoning her philosophical studies for the approved goal of making a good marriage. My goal for Daughter of Mystery was to write a ripping good tale of adventure, love, and intrigue. Here's what she has to say about this wonderful book! Jo_grahamRight now I'm part of a Storybundle with author Heather Rose Jones, and so I'm delighted to welcome her as my very first guest blogger! Her novel Daughter of Mystery, has a lot in common with The Emperor's Agent: an early 19th century setting and a queer woman protagonist, for starters.

Daughter of Mystery by Heather Rose Jones