#and i darken

[lgbtqreads]

Better Know an Author: Kiersten White

Today on the site, I am absolutely thrilled to be chatting with powerhouse author Kiersten White, whose newest novel, Lucy Undying, releases tomorrow from Del Rey! Lucy Undying is gloriously lush and Gothic lit fic that travels between past and present (slash near future) telling the story of Dracula‘s Lucy Westenra, and before we get to my chat with the author, here’s a little more about the…

[sapphicbookoftheday]

Favorite Non-Sapphic Books

Hey, everyone! Although this is a blog for sapphic books, I thought it might be nice to share some of my other favorite books. (By the way, this is a really long list.)

[thereadingchallengechallenge]

JOMP BPC - Dec 8th - Best Character Development

I loved Radu's character arc in the And I Darken series by Kiersten White

[charlesoberonn]

[prettylittleproblem]

"On our wedding night," she said, "I will cut out your tongue and swallow it. Then both tongues that spoke our marriage vows will belong to me, and I will be wed only to myself. You will most likely choke to death on your own blood, which will be unfortunate, but I will be both husband and wife and therefore not a widow to be pitied."

- Lada Dracul, 'And I Darken' by Kiersten White

[em-nikolaev]

The Duality of "Strong Female Character No. 2"

So, I'm re-reading the Conqueror's Saga by Kiersten White for what must be the thousandth time, and I keep comparing it (irrationally) to another series I'm re-reading, that being the shades of magic. The main line of connection I've been able to draw between them are the female characters featured within, both SOM and TCS have 'strong female characters' in a historical setting, but they are so very different in how they are written.

I'll confess, I don't like Lila Bard, she gets on my nerves, for the longest time I didn't really relise why, but now I have a thesis, so buckle in.

Lila is NOT a strong female character, she's manipulative, cruel, a bit misogynist, and selfish, which, on it's own would be fine, we love flawed characters in this household, but the problem is, it's never acknowledged in any real way during the series how her actions harm others, and even herself. Her views are validated and rewarded without consequence, I mean, there are moments when she feels some semblance of guilt, but it's never more than a fleeting thought, I'd like to make it clear, I understand why people like her, and that's completely fine, she's a strong woman with a knife and an absurd amount of confidence and that's awesome, but I can't help but feel that her presence in the SOM is bringing the series down, feel free to disagree, I'd love to be proven otherwise, but as it stands, I don't think the character of Lila Bard is a good one, especially in comparison to Lada, who is a similar character in a lot of ways, they are both forced to act more like men for safety and power, they are both strong willed and dangerous women, but the thing that I think raises And I Darken and subsequent books above and beyond in their writing is the way Lada interacts with other women, as well as how she reacts to the world and her own actions.

At first Lada and Lila are quite similar, Lada thinks of women as weak and powerless, likely due to how her mother abandoned her to a situation that ultimately resulted in both her and her brother's captivity (not a spoiler, it happens pretty early on, if you haven't read And I Darken I can't recommend it more, It's great) but as the story progresses her view is challenged, she meets many different women in a similar situation to her and she ends up seeing how femininity and their womanhood can be just as powerful as the control which she has found with blunt force and cruelty, but she finds that, for the very same reason those women were able to leverage their femininity, she was not able to, Lada is not beautiful, she is not "court smart", and she is not patient, these are faults which she understands, much in the way that the women around her understand that they too have faults in that they do not have the physical strength or strategy to fight numerous battles, all this to say, Lada is different than (some not even all) the women around her, that does not make her better or worse, just different, whereas with Lila, she's "not like other girls" because she's perceived as better, breaking even the very laws of the established universe to express that she is special.

I'm really interested in hearing anyone's thoughts if you've read either of these books, I would also like to say that I really enjoyed the Shades of Magic series aside from the grievances I stated above, and am not saying that I think V. E. Schwab is a bad writer,

With that I conclude my long winded essay, don't forget to drink water, eat food, and sleep!

[ya-world-challenge]

Book Review: The Conqueror's Saga by Kiersten White (🇷🇴  Romania)

[image 1: book trilogy covers: And I Darken, Now I Rise, Bright We Burn. On each cover a spear slashes through an object: a flower, a necklace, a pomegranate; image 2: map showing modern Romania; image 3: the view from Poenari castle in Romania - the walls of a stone fortress drop away to a steep mountainous landscape covered in green; source: wikimedia]

And I Darken; Now I Rise; Bright We Burn

Author: Kiersten White

YA World Challenge for 🇷🇴 Romania

I've seen some criticism of this series by Romanian reviewers, one of which is Lada's name (which I agree is odd), and others that are to be expected when you take a national hero (Vlad the Impaler), gender-flip him, and write him in love with the leader of an empire that oppressed your nation for centuries. So it's important to acknowledge this series as pure fiction. It did have me flipping through Wikipedias of the the real historical characters mentioned, many of whom I had never learned about before.

While much of the series (1 and 2 especially) take place in the Ottoman Empire (modern Turkey), the series follows the point of view of two siblings from Wallachia, a historical region of the modern state of Romania.

Review

Lada and her brother Radu are left as hostages of the Ottoman Empire as children to keep their father "loyal" as a vassal. I loved Lada's character from the beginning: strong-willed, possessive, brutal even as a child, and "ugly". The character-building was expert and the way the author weaves relationships and motivations in a complex tapestry, against a backdrop of a rich world.

And I Darken builds the siblings' relationship with the future sultan Mehmed, setting up that messy love triangle, and a scheme to get Mehmed on the throne. While Radu falls for Islam, Lada is never not wholly dedicated to Wallachia.

With Now I Rise, oh lord, the gay angst!... dear Radu. With Lada gone off to find support for her kingdom, Radu is left with his angst. We see the battle of Constantinople, and interconnected politics around Eastern Europe as Lada raises her army and searches for allies.

Bright We Burn, and Lada is ready to go full-on Impaler. The action was great, until... the entire climax and ending. I felt the finale really cheated Lada and did not serve her character. I didn't feel that book 3 lived up to its title. (And god, what a cringe epilogue!)

I have such mixed feelings about this series because it is incredibly well-written and engaging throughout, with an epic world and depth of character. But I dislike the ending the more I think about it. Without spoilers, I can just say that I think the whole feminist theme built up through the book fell apart in the end.

Books 1-2 I would have rated 4.5 stars, but Book 3 ultimately pulled the rating down.

Other reps: #muslim #gay #m/f #lesbian side characters #orthodox christian

Genres: #alternate history #drama #romance #adventure #war

★  ★  ★    3 stars

SPOILER rant under the cut:

In Book 2, the gunpowder lady said something to Radu - that Lada would be the type to go out with fire. With a title called Bright We Burn, I fully expected to see Lada going down as brightly and destructively as a meteorite, taking herself out with everything. What a disappointment.

The ending and Lada's forced 'submission' to Radu, by him taking away every last thing she had, under the guise of *compassion*, quite rankled me. It took away all the independence of her character that the series had built up from the beginning, and replaced it with nothing.

And. The. Kid. That epilogue. No, just no. I hate that such a promising series had to end with the cisheteronormative notion that "you must bear progeny to have a legacy". Fuck that. It completely threw away everything that Lada was just to have this "oh cute she acts like her mother" moment. 🤮 That and Radu vandalizing the church floor with his weak, misogynist scratchings.

It could have been so much better.

[sailor-toni]

I thought I was going to like this

[bellasbookclub]

Reccer Spotlight: Ioco!

Good Omens

The Eyre Affair

Dogsbody

Eleanor and Park

And I Darken

Ioco's recs are all different types of throwback: we've got history, time travel, modern classics, and coming-of-age. Full text available in their tab of the Bella’s Book Club Summer Reading ‘23 Reclist!

more info on BBC Summer Reading 2023

more Reccer Spotlights

[aroaessidhe]

some books to go with my purple roses bookmark 💜🌹

[kingocats]

“On our wedding night," she said, "I will cut out your tongue and swallow it. Then both tongues that spoke our marriage vows will belong to me, and I will be wed only to myself … I will be both husband and wife and therefore not a widow to be pitied.”

- Kiersten White, And I Darken

[aestheticgirlie4]

February 2023 Reads

Bright We Burn ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Violet Made of Thorns ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Daughter of the Moon Goddess ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Kaikeyi ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Fault in Our Stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Eleanor and Park ⭐️⭐️⭐️

[caffeinated-bibliophile]

Yeah, no, I think Bright We Burn is going to be a DNF at 88% 😒 I'm equally furious and so disappointed.

I approached this series with baggage and hesitation anyway because Vlad Dracula was basically a special interest for most of my childhood.

I had And I Darken on my shelf for I think more than 5 years before I convinced myself to just go for it. And then I flew through it, Now I Rise, and this much of Bright We Burn in 4 or 5 days.

But, early on, I had a sinking feeling about how this final book was going to end. So, I looked up spoilers when I hit a point that threatened to be the last straw, and my suspicions were correct.

I was already not enjoying this one, but hoped it was going to pull through after the halfway point. It has not. I think it's gotten worse, actually.

I think I should have just stopped after book 2 😩

Spoilers below

Also, starting either near the end of book 2 or early in this one, I've wanted to down Radu (and a few other characters) in a chamber pot that's been in alternating baking sun and rain drizzles and steaming humidity for 3 days.

[inkskinned]

please i love you i'm begging you bring back suspension of disbelief bring back trusting the audience like. i cannot handle any more dialogue that sounds like a legal document. "hello, i am here to talk to you about the incident from a few minutes ago, because i feel you might be unwell, and i am invested in your personal wellbeing." "thank you, i am unwell because the incident was hurtful to me due to my childhood, which was bad." I CANT!!!!

do you know how many people are mad that authors use "growled" as a word for "said"? it's just poetics! they do not literally mean "growled," it's just a common replacement for "said with force but in a low tone." it's normal! do you hear me!! help me i love you please let me out of here!!!

[sailorbina]

just finished reading “bright we burn” I wish radu and cyprian had more cute scenes i really wanted to read their spiritual marriage at the epilogue or something like that 🥺🫶

[sixela0221]

I just want Radu to be happy 🥺