Re-read Review ~ Queen of Darkness by Anne Bishop

**New thoughts in Purple**
TITLE: Queen of the Darkness
AUTHOR: Anne Bishop
COPYRIGHT: 2000
TYPE: Fantasy
PAGES; 448
SERIES: yes

1. Daughter of the Blood
2. Heir to the Shadow

REASON FOR READING: Read the first 2 had to know how it ends

SUMMARY: {From http://www.sfsite.com/04b/qd79.htm }
The series is set in a world of interlinked Realms ruled by the Blood, a race of witches and warlocks whose power is channelled through magical Jewels (the darker the Jewel, the greater the power). Over time, much of the Blood has become corrupt, and the delicate mesh of tradition and loyalty meant to maintain stability among these powerful and often violent people has become fatally distorted. Into this period of decline is born a Blood female, Jaenelle. Jaenelle is not simply a witch, but Witch: the embodiment of all the Realms' dreams of power, the Queen of the Darkness who will lead the Blood back to the purity of the old ways.
But there are those who fear the coming of Witch, and Jaenelle has many enemies, at whose hands she has suffered rape and worse, in an attempt to rob her of her birthright. Despite these terrible trials, she has survived to come fully into her power. She now rules as Queen of Ebon Askavi, protector of the Shadow Realm of Khaleer, protected in turn by her loyal Court of human and non-human Blood and by her loving adopted family, to whose devotion she owes both her life and her sanity. Her world can't be complete, though, until she's joined by her promised Consort: Daemon, the great love of her life, who for eight years has been lost to madness in the mistaken belief that it was he who raped her.
Now Daemon, understanding the truth at last, has broken free of the insanity that claimed him. He and Jaenelle are reunited, and slowly, hesitantly, their love is fulfilled. But one of Jaenelle's enemies still hunts her: Dorothea, a powerful and sadistic Queen determined to rule all the Realms. Reluctantly, Jaenelle realizes she must fight -- not just against Dorothea, but against the corruption that has infected so much of the Blood, and threatens the stability of all the Realms. There is only one way to do it: she must unleash the full power of Witch. She knows that in the storm that follows, all the Blood in the world will die -- unless she makes a much greater sacrifice.
THOUGHTS/OPINION:
Wow just wow. This book was fantastic I actually learned something from a fantasy book. The most important thing I think a lot of us forget. It takes time to heal. And wow oh wow does this book take that to far extreme. This is a powerful ending to a fantastic trilogy and I am so happy that I finally got to it. I really, really enjoyed this series. And I’ll be the first to admit when I read this book I started crying. It was so upsetting towards the end and yet I felt uplifted. This is going to be a very hard review for me to write. This book is the final chapter in a beautiful story that has been woven from page one of Daughter of the Blood. I love how this series ended on a high note and yet it was a sad ending. We learned, laughed, cried and fought for the characters in this story wanting only their happiness and we were faithfully rewarded.

Things I enjoyed:Where to begin I enjoyed pretty much everything about this book. I enjoyed watching all the characters struggle to come into their own. I enjoyed watching the growth of the characters and I have to admit I was shocked at what each character had to go through in order to achieve their growth. *Anne Bishop is great at putting her characters and the reader through the wringer. There were times I thought she was going to let me down. There were times I was certain that I was going to have to walk away but in the end she managed to pull me through and made me believe there is such a thing as a HEA. Sadly though it does come at a high cost. There were parts in here that made me cringe and parts that made me cry. There were only a few parts in this book that made me snigger or laugh but there were enough to break up the darkness of the book. You have to keep in mind this is a dark series and it has a lot of things going on that are hard to read. This book is about action and how every action has a consequence. Sometimes the action has to be taken no matter what the consequence is going to be and this book proves that. It went above and beyond my expectations for an ending. While there were some romantic elements it didn’t feel as if the book suffered to make the readers happy in fact it kept its darkness all the way through the end. Each character in this book had to suffer in order to grow. That thought brought home a lot of things. In order to become a great person one much suffer and learn from our mistakes. Each character had to scarifice something of themselves in order to give back as a whole. The greatest sacarifice was Janelle and Deamon. But in the end they got their greatest reward.

Things I didn’t care for:
The only thing I didn’t care for where certain parts that were skipped over. Like L getting a wife and a child where was that story and how did it happen? What I didn't know at the time of reading this is Anne has put out a bunch of short stories that help us to see the questions and get some answers. And I would have loved to see more of D and J hooking up. I think if she would have focused more on them hooking up we would've missed the important part of their love. They had it even without the physical aspect. They were able to love each other without any restrictions so when the physical part came it didn't need detail b/c it was beautiful. I did find out that Ms. Bishop put out other book that supposedly has these stories in it so you know I will be checking that out.

Are you keeping it or passing it on? Keeping