'Kushiel's Chosen' by Jacqueline Carey

Kushiel’s Chosen does not deserve its reputation as a lesser book. While it’s not as overall a good read as its predecessor, Kushiel’s Dart, it’s still about as good as fantasy political intrigue gets.

The intrigue, at least, is better than in Dart. Because Phedre in the first book is working for Delaunay, a mentor who keeps her in the dark about his ultimate goals, Phedre doesn’t understand ultimately what she’s working towards in the first half of the book, and it makes the initial intrigue feel less intense and more vague. In Chosen, Phedre knows exactly what she’s working towards, and it’s much more exciting seeing her as a chess-master rather than just another (albeit powerful) playing piece; furthermore, her relationships with Joscelin and Melisande continue to develop.

The book begins and ends well, because they focus on Phedre’s eternal battle of wits with the brilliant traitor, Melisande, but if this book is worse than Dart, it’s because it has a plodding middle section where Phedre finds herself aboard a pirate ship. The middle section mainly serves to show how “good” of a person Phedre is, so “good” that she can redeem a criminal pirate captain, and it’s the only part of the series where Phedre comes close to acting like a Mary Sue.