It's a first post sort of deal, isn't it? The Black Jewels

First off, this blog will be scrumptiously diverse. I have too many interests for my own good and this is a way to log them and any thoughts I may have on them.
Now then, lets get on with it.

So my good friend dragged me to the bookstore about a week ago, shoved a book into my hands, and told me to buy it. Apparently it is extremely entertaining as well as being fairly deep, and it has plenty of angst to spare. It very, very dark and is geared more towards young adults than any other age, not saying older people wouldn't enjoy it, but children probably wouldn't appreciate or understand it fully.

Actually, it's 3 books compiled into one and the trilogy is called The Black Jewels Trilogy by Anne Bishop. It is quite entertaining even if repetitive for when Jaenelle shocks Saetan over and over and over. Unlike some certain books that have been recently popular, these books have a bit of depth to them. They have a few messages, and that is good, even if a few of them are blatant and repeated often.
"Briarwood is the pretty poison. There is no cure for Briarwood," becomes a heart-learned phrase by the end of the first book, and you learn without a doubt that Jaenelle is Witch and Witch is Jaenelle and Jaenelle is Jaenelle. It's a very straightforward book, and therefor very easy to read. I can read 200 pages without anything being able to distract me. That's a feat.
I wouldn't say that this is a horribly brilliant series, but it is a good read with enjoyable characters and a good plot with a very imaginative setting.

First, a bit of background. The blood are a group of creatures capable of doing craft. There are jeweled blood, blood, and landen, who are non-blood creatures.
Blood humans have set up courts throughout the realms: Terriele, Kaeleer, and Hell. There are also blood and jeweled blood animals called kindred, but they come into play more in the second and third book. There are different levels of jewels: the darker the more powerful. One's final jewel can be up to three shades darker than one's birthright jewel. There are different classes of blood, but I won't get into that, and there are such things as Black Widows who have the ability to weave tangled webs to see visions and have a poisonous snake tooth under their ring finger.
Women are the leaders of the blood, the men are the warriors and protectors. The blood is balanced on a thin line of trust. If the women abuse their powers, the men retaliate, and that is exactly what has happened. A few select witches have become ambitious and are trying to become the most powerful creatures in Terriele, using Rings of Obedience on the males to get them to do what they want. Instead of harmonious balance, blood society is spiraling into a hostile and rather disagreeable environment.

The story is about Jaenelle, a charming young natural Black Widow witch with birthright black jewels able to do the unimaginable -- travel unknown winds, create a never ending night for only the blood, and heal a Warrior Prince who normally would have been considered beyond repair, yet she can't do simple craft, like fetching her shoes with thought alone. Jaenelle meets Daemon, a Warlord Prince wearing the black jewels who has been sold from blood court to blood court as a pleasure slave in Terriele, and Lucivar, a winged half-breen Eyrien Warlord Prince who wears the ebon-grey jewels. Daemon and Lucivar are half-brothers. Jaenelle meets and takes lessons from Saetan, the demon-dead High Priest of Hell Black Widow Warlord Prince with black jewels. As Jaenelle's past and home life is revealed, it is obvious that Daemon, who had been given as a gift to the court of Jaenelle's grandmother, must take her away from Briarwood, the "institution for mentally unstable children", and her family that won't believe a word the poor girl says, won't teach her craft, and simply can't love her. It's much more dangerous than it sounds, and the results spurn the second book.

That's all I can say without giving too much away. It's a pretty good read, so I recommend it, however, it's very violent and pretty sexual, so if that's not your cup of tea. . .