Um. Okay. I've only read the Black Jewels novels - I did post about the trilogy before. It's fantasy, and very dark. It's sort of based around the notion of three interacting realms, a bit like the Faerie-Earth-Underworld of Celtic mythology, but it's not Celtic in flavour. It's a dark world dominated by a group of powerful women who keep men as sex slaves and so on...and it's not as porny as that sounds - there's almost no graphic sex. The three main male characters are of a very long-lived race (like, millennia old) and they've been waiting for this prophesied Witch to be born who will have the ability to change the power balance, make the world better.
When she finally shows up, she's nothing like anyone expected. She's a child in the first novel, hugely powerful and very confused. Then later you learn about some awful things that have happened to her and her friends. And it's all bound up in this centuries-old family conflict between the men.
What I like about Anne's writing...well, what I like most, is she makes the reader figure stuff out. She doesn't spend a lot of time explaining things. There's a lot of depth in the relationships but you have to pay attention to get it all. And though she has LKH's weakness for beautiful, not-quite-human men, it doesn't come across as self-indulgence the way LKH's stuff does. I've seen some people refer to Jaenelle as a Mary Sue and I can see where that comes from, but I don't agree. She's super-powerful, yes, but she's not flawless or always-right.
Tangled Webs is more overtly political than the earlier trilogy, because it's about the relationship between the Blood (the aristocracy, who have magic) and the Landen (non-magic people) which wasn't really touched on before. It's also more overtly sexual. I'm not sure if it's because Jaenelle is an adult now or if it's all the relationships that are different in this book. Either way, I like it :-)
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When she finally shows up, she's nothing like anyone expected. She's a child in the first novel, hugely powerful and very confused. Then later you learn about some awful things that have happened to her and her friends. And it's all bound up in this centuries-old family conflict between the men.
What I like about Anne's writing...well, what I like most, is she makes the reader figure stuff out. She doesn't spend a lot of time explaining things. There's a lot of depth in the relationships but you have to pay attention to get it all. And though she has LKH's weakness for beautiful, not-quite-human men, it doesn't come across as self-indulgence the way LKH's stuff does. I've seen some people refer to Jaenelle as a Mary Sue and I can see where that comes from, but I don't agree. She's super-powerful, yes, but she's not flawless or always-right.
Tangled Webs is more overtly political than the earlier trilogy, because it's about the relationship between the Blood (the aristocracy, who have magic) and the Landen (non-magic people) which wasn't really touched on before. It's also more overtly sexual. I'm not sure if it's because Jaenelle is an adult now or if it's all the relationships that are different in this book. Either way, I like it :-)