Yates's incisive, moving, and often very funny prose weaves a tale that is at once a fascinating period piece and a prescient anticipation of the way we live now. Many of the cultural motifs seem quaintly dated--the early-evening cocktails, Frank's illicit lunch breaks with his secretary, the way Frank isn't averse to knocking April around when she speaks out of turn--and yet the quiet desperation at thwarted dreams reverberates as much now as it did years ago. Like F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, this novel conveys, with brilliant erudition, the exacting cost of chasing the American dream.
Phedre no Delaunay has survived much in her short life; she is an anguissette, a courtly spy, and the keeper of a nation's secrets. She has saved a kingdom, kept her people from a barbaric invasion, and thwarted Melisandre Shahrizai, a ruthless, Machiavellian villainess. But Phedre's gods are not yet finished with her,
