Kushiel's Chosen

Following hard on the heels of Kushiel's Dart, Jacqueline Carey's

spectacular debut novel, comes Kushiel's Chosen, a glittering and

riveting historical fantasy.

The land of Terre d'Ange is a place

of unsurpassed beauty and grace. It is said that the angels found the

land and saw it was good, and the ensuing race that rose from the seed

of angels and men live by one simple rule: Love as thou wilt.

Phèdre

nó Delaunay is a young woman who was born with a scarlet mote in her

left eye and sold into indentured servitude as a child. Her bond was

purchased by Anafiel Delaunay, a nobleman with a very special

mission--and the first to recognize her for who and what she is: one

pricked by Kushiel's Dart, chosen to forever experience pain and

pleasure as one.

Phèdre has trained in the courtly arts and the

talents of the bedchamber, but, above all, the ability to observe,

remember, and analyze. Having stumbled upon a plot that threatened the

very foundations of her homeland, she gave up almost everything she held

dear to save it. She survived, and lived to have others tell her story,

and if they embellished the tale with fabric of mythical splendor, they

weren't far off the mark.

The hands of the gods weigh heavily

upon Phèdre's brow, and they are not yet done with their charge--for

while the young queen who sits upon the throne is well loved by the

people, there are those who believe that other heads should wear the

crown. And those who escaped the wrath of the mighty are not yet done

with their schemes for power and revenge. To protect and serve, Phèdre

will once again leave her beloved homeland.

From the

sun-drenched villas of La Serenissima to the wilds of old Hellas, from a

prison designed to drive the very gods mad to an island of immutable

joy. Phèdre will meet old friends and new enemies and discover a plot so

dreadful as to make the earth tremble, masterminded by the one person

she cannot turn away from.