The House of Binding Thorns

by Aliette de Bodard Narrated by Peter Kenny

Overview

As the city rebuilds from the onslaught of sorcery that nearly destroyed it, the great Houses of Paris, ruled by fallen angels, still contest one another for control over the capital.

House Silverspires was once the most powerful, but just as it sought to rise again, an ancient evil brought it low. Phillippe, an immortal who escaped the carnage, has a singular goal-to resurrect someone he lost. But the cost of such magic might be more than he can bear.

In House Hawthorn, Madeleine the alchemist has had her addiction to angel essence savagely broken. Struggling to live on, she is forced on a perilous diplomatic mission to the underwater dragon kingdom-and finds herself in the midst of intrigues that have already caused one previous emissary to mysteriously disappear¿.

As the Houses seek a peace more devastating than war, those caught between new fears and old hatreds must find strength-or fall prey to a magic that seeks to bind all to its will.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

★ 02/13/2017
Meddling gleefully in the affairs of devils and dragons, this affective sequel to 2015’s The House of Shattered Wings touches the heart as often as it cuts throats. In this alternate timeline, the Great War of the early 20th century was fought by competing houses of fallen angels and witches, and 60 years later, Paris is still a shambles. Disgraced alchemist Madeleine has returned to House Hawthorn, but she fears torment at the hands of its master, Asmodeus. She joins a delegation to the underwater Annamite dragon kingdom to secure a marriage alliance. Berith, Asmodeus’s sister, tries to shelter her pregnant mortal lover, Françoise, from a rival house as members of the local Vietnamese community are conscripted into a draconic rebellion. Philippe, a Vietnamese former immortal, mourns the fallen angel Isabelle and searches for a way to resurrect her. Having fully crafted her world, de Bodard is now completely in control: she can move swiftly from gentle poetic touches to bloody Grand Guignol gestures, and she sure-handedly holds the reader by exposing the vulnerabilities and needs that drive even the seemingly all-powerful figures of rebel angels and ancient serpents to surrender to a higher collective power. In this world lacking signs of heaven, redemptions are painful but possible. (Apr.)

From the Publisher

Praise for The House of Binding Thorns

“If reading [The House of Binding Thorns] is sometimes walking the unfenced edge of a cliff, the vista is dizzying and beautiful.”—Fantasy & Science Fiction

“This affective sequel to 2015’s The House of Shattered Wings touches the heart as often as it cuts throats.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Praise for The House of Shattered Wings
 
“The devastated Paris of Aliette de Bodard’s novel is especially haunting…A series of mysterious deaths turns the novel into a surprising but compelling murder mystery, which plays out according to the supernatural terms de Bodard has laid out so evocatively.”—The Chicago Tribune
 
“The House of Shattered Wings exists in a rich, evocative Paris that is thick with magical history. Pathos and beauty intertwine in a novel filled with longing.”—Mary Robinette Kowal, Multiple-Hugo award winning author of the Glamourist Histories
 
“A Gothic masterpiece of supernatural intrigues, loves and betrayals in a ruined and decadent future Paris—wildly imaginative and completely convincing, this novel will haunt you long after you’ve put it down.”—Tim Powers, author of The Anubis Gates
 
“Lyrical, sophisticated, lush, suspenseful…brings to life an exciting world of deep magic and complex, layered characters.”—Ken Liu, author of the Dandelion Dynasty
 
“De Bodard presents a gritty, otherworldly Paris in her fast-paced, fantastical thriller.”—The Washington Post
 
“Gripping...reads like a hybrid of le Carre and Milton, all tinged with the melancholy of golden ages lost.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
 
“A novel that is both haunting and original, its sense of loss almost palpable, and its setting not quite anything else in modern fantasy.”—Locus
 
“It’s a grim story with high-flown conventions, but by finding so much ugliness even in supernatural beauty, de Bodard makes both seem more compelling, and more concrete.”—NPR.com

Library Journal

03/15/2017
Madeleine was forced to return to House Hawthorn, ruled by the fallen angel Asmodeus, after the destruction of House Silverspires (depicted in House of Shattered Wings). Given one last chance to pull herself out of her spiral of addiction to angel essence, she is sent on a diplomatic mission to the dragon kingdom under the river Seine. The dragons, once thought to be pure myth, are becoming a force to be reckoned with in Paris, even as the houses governed by the Fallen continue to fight among themselves. This ambitious fantasy series explores a Paris partly in ruins, dominated by fallen angels. While de Bodard touched on the dragon kingdom in the first book, here she further explores their efforts to challenge the houses above, and draws on her own Vietnamese background for the unique culture of dragons as well as immortals, such as returning character Phillippe. She also fills in corners of her Parisian landscape, showing the vulnerability of life for those living outside the houses. VERDICT The large cast of characters gives this series entry less emotional heft than the initial volume, but it is still a fascinating world with a welcome diversity of cultures and sexualities.—MM

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169838671
Publisher:	Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Publication date:	04/04/2017
Series:	Dominion of the Fallen , #2
Edition description:	Unabridged

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