Kelso makes an attempt to acknowledge how messed up this is - Zuri herself is ready to commit suicide afterwards, from guilt and shame - but. What Zuri does is unquestionably sexual assault, but it's romanticized by the narrative in a way that none of the (attempted) male-on-female or male-on-male sexual violence is. Specifically rape where the victim is male leaving aside the arguably gratuitous amount of suffering Alkhes is forced to go through, the Sarthis/Zuri plotline bothered me a lot.

What Zuri does is unquestionably sexual assault, but it's romanticized While Riversend is just as beautifully written as its predecessor Amberlight, and much as I appreciated the addition of Alkhes and Sarth as first-person narrators of the story, I can't help but be uncomfortable with how rape is treated in this book. While Riversend is just as beautifully written as its predecessor Amberlight, and much as I appreciated the addition of Alkhes and Sarth as first-person narrators of the story, I can't help but be uncomfortable with how rape is treated in this book. This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.

But these tropes bug me done the usual way, and they bug me here. I'm not sure how many of the problems are deliberate - the gender reversal of the easy tropes of a woman who becomes accustomed to the restraints of a society more patriachal than her own. A man is forced to marry his rapist - but it's okay, he really liked it. Alkhes, who was gang-raped in Amberlight, is tortured and raped again. Consenting to sleep in the same bed with someone doesn't mean consenting to have sex with them, Tellurith, and this is something you should negotiate with them before you start making out with them in front of someone else, or with someone else in front of them. Tellurith springs the news that she wants to have a threesome and not a V-relationship with her husbands while she's in bed with them. Tellurith is autocratic with her own husbands, who do not appear to realize it. Alkhes doesn't adjust easily to Amberlight constraints, but he doesn't show much of the automatic prejudice that his culture would inculcate, and which is hard to root out even when you're trying. I like Kelso's vivid prose, but I have huge problems with her characterization. Sarth is a traditional Amberlight man who was secluded in a harem and trained to please women, and Alkhes is a former general from a patriachal enemy who just waged war against Amberlight. Her new tripartite marriage causes its own problems her two husbands do not get along. Her reception isn't improved by the presence of her two husbands (her people are polygamous but only allow wives to share men). Following the destruction of the city of Amberlight and the powerful sentient stone known as qherique, Tellurith leads her displace House to a remote province, where traditionalists resist Tellurith's plans to treat men as equals and allow them access to traditionally female trades. Her new tripartite marriage causes its own problems her two husba To preserve the dream, all three must journey to Dhasdeins imperial capital of Riversend and face deadly menace and perilous machination.more

To achieve Telluriths dream, both must re-shape their lives. But the traditionalist Iskardans are outraged by Telluriths policies and appalled by her love for two husbands: Alkhes the rough, dark Outlander who brought Amberlight its doomand golden Sarth, epitome of the urbane men of the Amberlight Towers. But the traditionalist Iskardans are outraged by Telluriths policies and appalled by her love for two The Stunning Sequel to the Highly Acclaimed Amberlight Fighting doubt and convention, beset with great challenge and facing profound change, Tellurith leads her displaced House to a new beginning and a different life in Iskardaa life that includes men and women as equals. The Stunning Sequel to the Highly Acclaimed Amberlight Fighting doubt and convention, beset with great challenge and facing profound change, Tellurith leads her displaced House to a new beginning and a different life in Iskardaa life that includes men and women as equals.

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