Knight of the Demon Queen
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Knight of the Demon Queen is the third book in Barbara Hambly’s fantasy tour de force, The Winterlands – an epic, classic quartet full of high stakes, magic and dragons.
Once the most powerful mage in the land, defeater of dragons, Jenny Waynest is now a broken woman.
She was possessed and corrupted by a demon, losing all she held dear – including her love’s trust. Rebuilding her life seems impossible.
Her husband, Lord John, now bears his own torment, far away: he tricked the beautiful and cruel Aohila a rival hell’s demon queen, in order to free his wife from possession and now he is plagued by her memories.
Condemned to death for making deals with demons, John cannot forgive himself for opening the door to a far greater evil – an evil that now haunts his dreams. And not only his dreams…
For the vengeful Aohila needs mortal aid in realms beyond her power, and who better to provide it than John? Blackmailed into cooperating, John must fight his way through unimaginable horrors in a quest that may doom the world he has left behind…
Reviews
Praise for Barbara Hambly:
‘Wondrous’
Brandon Sanderson
‘This is literary alchemy of the highest order, and it confirms Hambly’s place as one of the best new fantasists’
Locus
‘An enviable and intricate talent’
Janny Wurts
About the author
Barbara Hambly was born in San Diego. Her interest in fantasy began with reading The Wizard of Oz at an early agae and has continued ever since. She attended the University of California, Riverside, specializing in medieval history and then spent a year at the University at Bordeaux in Southern France as a teaching and research assistant. She now lives in Los Angeles.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"The season of demons is on the world," announces the Demon Queen Aohila in this meditative sequel to the fantasies Dragonsbane and Dragonshadow. On the cusp of the winter following Jenny Waynest and Lord John Aversin's summer ordeal against demons and insurrectionists, their son, Ian, is driven to attempt suicide. His dreams, like his mother's, are haunted--both by the minor demon who possessed him during the summer and by Folcalor, an archdemon who seeks more gates between demons and humans to spawn mass "pain and terror and rage, lust and guilt and shame." Concurrently, Aohila visits Lord John to remind him of the debt he owes her for helping to vanquish the demons, who are now her prisoners behind the Mirror of Isychros. Up against her threats and pledges, John agrees to undertake an arduous quest with the demon Amayon--Jenny's former master--for his guide. Along the way, John discovers different hells, as well as a world whose inhabitants suffer from lives circumscribed by mood-altering drugs. Teaming up with a group of misfits who long for magic rather than for drugs, John strives to understand Aohila's demands as he attempts to execute them. Back in the Winterlands, Jenny, Ian and other residents face their own battles, but their opponents have been strangely superpowered, thus requiring special efforts of Jenny, who has been stripped of her mage's abilities in a prior battle. While John is an admirably realized character, he moves rather mechanically through his challenges, and Jenny and Ian's trials are overshadowed by his exploits. Intricately plotted and solidly written, the story nevertheless feels book-ended by past and likely future adventures--making this an amenable entry for series fans, but a difficult one for readers new to Hambly's demon-infested world.
