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A review by skycrane
Mother of Souls by Heather Rose Jones
5.0
I didn't like this one quite as much as the second book in the series, but I still loved it. My only real issue with it was the same as my issue with the first book: I wish there was more of it! I really liked how the author uses different perspectives to comment on the prejudices of the various characters. Serafina and Luzie still aren't commoners, but they are much closer than the wealthy main characters of the previous novels, being of a class where they're actually expected to work for a living. The racism Serafina experiences is also quite interesting, the author really explores the way the concept of race has changed over the centuries.
Also, this book is when I finally got curious enough to start figuring out where on earth this fictional principality is supposed to be located. Fortunately, there's substantially more travel in this book than in the previous ones, with directions towards real cities, so it's easier to guess. Since the first book mentioned a character looking southeast towards Switzerland, I assumed Alpennia was somewhere on the northern side of the Alps, in Swabia or the Rhineland, but after looking more closely, I think it's clear it's actually inspired by the Rhone region, not the Rhine. The cultural and commercial ties to Lyon and Geneva imply that. Also, a German name for the Rhone is "Rotten", which is close enough to Rotein that I assume that's what the author was referencing. So Alpennia is probably somewhere in the Savoy/Arpitan region. Of course, I could've saved myself a lot of trouble if I'd just gone to the author's website, where she explains that Alpennia is one of those fictional places that squeezes in between real places without displacing any of them, and that it's located between Switzerland, France, and Italy.
Also, this book is when I finally got curious enough to start figuring out where on earth this fictional principality is supposed to be located. Fortunately, there's substantially more travel in this book than in the previous ones, with directions towards real cities, so it's easier to guess. Since the first book mentioned a character looking southeast towards Switzerland, I assumed Alpennia was somewhere on the northern side of the Alps, in Swabia or the Rhineland, but after looking more closely, I think it's clear it's actually inspired by the Rhone region, not the Rhine. The cultural and commercial ties to Lyon and Geneva imply that. Also, a German name for the Rhone is "Rotten", which is close enough to Rotein that I assume that's what the author was referencing. So Alpennia is probably somewhere in the Savoy/Arpitan region. Of course, I could've saved myself a lot of trouble if I'd just gone to the author's website, where she explains that Alpennia is one of those fictional places that squeezes in between real places without displacing any of them, and that it's located between Switzerland, France, and Italy.