The Mercy Makers
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A talented heretic must decide between the pursuit of forbidden magic, or the ecstasy of forbidden love, in the start of a captivating epic fantasy trilogy by New York Times bestselling author Tessa Gratton.
★ "Laced with a vivid sensuality." —Jacqueline Carey, New York Times bestselling author of Kushiel's Dart
Can an empire trip and fall on a mere strand of silk?
Iriset is a prodigy and an outlaw. The daughter of a powerful criminal, she dons her alter ego Silk to create magical disguises for those in her father’s organization, but she longs to do more with her talent: to enhance what it means to be human by giving people wings, night-sight, and other abilities; to unlock the possibilities of gender and parenthood; to cure disease and even to end mortality itself.
Everything changes when her father is captured and sentenced to death. To save him, Iriset must infiltrate the palace and the empire’s fanatical ruling family. There, she realizes she has a chance—and an obligation—to bring down the entire corrupt system. She'll have to entangle herself in the lives of the emperor and his sister, getting them to trust and even to love her.
But love is a two-way street, and Iriset’s own heart holds the most mysterious and impenetrable magic of all.
★ "Beautiful, elegant, passionate novel. A triumph and a delight from start to finish." —Antonia Hodgson, author of The Raven Scholar
★ "Sexy and intriguing." —Ellen Kushner, author of Swordspoint
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this sensual and suspenseful fantasy, Gratton (The Queens of Innis Lear) brings to life an empire governed by four mystical forces: rising, falling, flow, and ecstatic. Iriset mé Isidor is an architect, someone skilled in manipulating these forces. Operating under the name Silk, she builds illegal devices for her father, Little Cat, on behalf of his expansive crime ring and publishes scandalous papers on the forbidden topic of human architecture, or using the forces to manipulate life itself. Silk is widely branded a heretic, but Iriset is protected by her father—until Little Cat's base is raided by the army. Iriset is taken prisoner as Little Cat's daughter, though no one knows that she and Silk are one and the same. When Amaranth mé Esmail, the Moon Eater's Mistress and sister to the emperor himself, takes Iriset under her wing, she finds herself tangling with the highest powers in the empire—and learning some startling truths about her world. Gratton spins a web of intrigue, mistaken identity, and simmering sexual tension from which the reader will not want to escape. With a beautifully constructed world and enthralling characters, this is sure to appeal to fans of Hannah Whitten's The Foxglove King.
