Of Swords and Parasols

 Moongazer is part of Dorchester's new Shomi line of romance novels.  I hadn't heard of the Shomi line until magicnoire  posted on it last week, though I had seen the books in the bookstore...and shied far away, thinking from the covers that it was a YA action series or something(though if I'd looked at author names, I'd have note that one is by Liz Maverock and would have at least learned more, as I quite liked the one Maverick book I've read.)  The Shomi line, as near as I can tell, is a line of romance novels with less emphasis on romance and more of adventure, scifi, fantasy, etc-whatever genre a particular book falls into.  This is good in principle, but those books often end up books that I feel would fare better as scifi or fantasy novels.  Moongazer isn't an exception to that opinion.

Spirit Fox is a high fantasy novel set in a world where heirarchy is determined by women (an aspect that is downplayed as opposed to turned into an endless power struggle or bondage game or any of those other things that tend to pop up in such fantasy worlds) and sometimes people "spirit link"(effectively, mix their souls with) animals at birth  (it's like Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books only...kinda cool and fun.)

Kiarda, the firstborn daughter of a noblewoman, spirit links with a fox kit at birth.  However, her father, Stane, not knowing of the link, kills the fox kit out of mercy because it's weak and it's mother has died.  This causes the fox's spirit to enter Kiarda.  Instead of one soul in two bodies, as most linked pairs are, Kiarda has two souls in one body.  The fox spirit lies dormant inside Kiarda until she's sixteen, when it starts taking over from time to time.  The first time it happens, Kiarda ends up alone and naked in the mountains.  Maddock, a stableboy who loves her, finds her and saves her, but is accused of having kidnapped and raped her.

Right now I'm reading Moongazer by Marianne Mancusi, from the Shomi romance novel line, which is fun but would likely be more fun to the gaming/matrix crowd.  It is, however, a bit rough for me, as it's written in the first person, which I'm usually OK with but don't care for in romance novels, and in the present tense, which tends to give me hives.  Still, the story is fun and I'm enjoying it.

ETA:  Entry was rather rushed because there was free time before home time and I wanted to be productive.