Like All the Windwracked Stars, I had a bit of a hard time getting into The Sea Thy Mistress. Actually, that's an understatement: I had a very hard time getting into this story. It takes place during the 50ish years right after All the Windwracked Stars: the world is renewed thanks to Muire's sacrifice. Selene and Cathoair, as angels, are trying to help the world and its people rebuild. But then 34 years later, Muire's child with Cathoair (Cathmar) washes up out of the sea. And Heythe arrives, finding the world not at all how she expected it.
From there, the book moves slowly through Cathmar's childhood and adolescence. Cathmar is a child first and an angel second, and so he needs to learn how the world works. And this was a bit of a slog to get through, especially when I found myself having to backtrack through the dates a bit to figure out how old Cathmar was at certain times.
But once he sort of grew up, it felt like the story really started. Cathmar slowly got his independence and found a girl he liked. He moved into the city with her around the time the Imogen showed up to serve his father. But Cathoair was still grieving the loss of both Astrid (whom he accidentally killed) and Muire (although she was not truly lost, just changed); the Imogen's ability to feed on your pain becomes an addiction. And when Heythe finds him and tells him she can send him back to save Astrid at the cost of four days spent with her, Cahey agrees to her torture, not realizing Heythe may be using him just to get to Muire.
The Sea Thy Mistress, when it comes down to it, is an interesting read. Unfortunately it takes a bit to get there. It doesn't help that it deal with a pretty big time span and multiple characters (on that note, I think it gets better when the characters more or less come together later in the book). All in all, I am glad I persevered through the beginning and finished it and the entire saga.
1 comment:
I was reading a few reviews on Goodreads, and I have to agree with Rosa Aquafire's point about the events being seemingly different between All the Windwracked Stars and The Sea Thy Mistress, particularly concerning Muire and Cahey. Nowhere in All the Windwracked Stars did I feel Muire and Cahey had an epic love story. So him grieving that she was gone felt a bit weird. I chalked it up to his grief at losing a number of people all at once (Astrid died, then Muire left rather soon after saving him), so I didn't think that was detrimental. But if you look at it as him just grieving Muire being gone, it does seem a bit weird.
You can read her review here if you're interested: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/935272020?book_show_action=true&page=1
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