Daughter of the Blood

Black Jewels, Book 1

By: Anne Bishop

Narrated by: John Sharian

Seven hundred years ago, a Black Widow witch saw an ancient prophecy come to life in her web of dreams and visions. Now, the Dark Kingdom readies itself for the arrival of its queen, a witch who will wield more power than even the High Lord of Hell himself. But she is still young, still open to influence - and corruption.

Whoever controls the queen controls the darkness. Three men - sworn enemies - know this. And they know the power that hides behind the blue eyes of an innocent young girl. And so begins a ruthless game of politics and intrigue, magic and betrayal, in which the weapons are hate and love - and the prize could be terrible beyond imagining.

©2007 Anne Bishop (P)2010 Penguin

Critic reviews

"Darkly mesmerizing...[a] fascinating, dark world.” (Locus)

“Lavishly sensual...a richly detailed world based on a reversal of standard genre cliches.” (Library Journal)

“Vividly painted...dramatic, erotic, hope-filled.” (Lynn Flewelling)

My favorite series!

I have read this book more times than I can count and it is amazing every time.

The new version is better

The book started slow and built to the end with the same thing as always. Love it so much more at the end
I'm sure you will never get there if you don't keep reading lol

Best series ever

This is 1st time listening to these books but 3rd time reading them. They're wonderful. The narrator isn't bad either.

great story

If you like supernatural type stories, you'll love this. Be mindful that there are a lot of moving parts so make mental notes. I look forward to the next in the series.

Up and down like the stock market

this book has it's strong points but it also has it's weak points the names can be confusing but over all it's pretty good

Wonderful

I had read the book before. With Audible, I enjoyed hearing each distinct character come to life.

Wicked Web of Entertainment

I hesitated on Daughter of the Blood because it sounded like a fantasy romance which I really don't enjoy. A love story as one of the plot lines can be great, but I tend to get bored with books when sex/romance are major plot drivers. However, Anne Bishop has been compared to one of my favorites, Anne Rice, so I decided to check it out. I have now listened all of the Black Jewels trilogy and this review is applicable to all three books.

Happily, I found that although there are sexual components and a sort of romantic thread through the books, this trilogy is really all about POWER - the ultimate plot driver for human nature and most good fantasy novels. The comparison of Bishop to Rice works only on a superficial level, but Bishop's trilogy does have some of the flavor of Rice's fantasy work and definitely treads some of the same dark perversions with heavy sadistic tones. If you are looking for the truly lush, almost poetic style of Anne Rice, you won't find it here; Bishop is a much more prosaic writer. But like Rice, these characters are emotionally over the top, but quite engaging - you can't really identify with the characters because they are not like people you know, but then they aren't totally human and they are fascinating. Bishop is truly talented at world building (always a huge asset in fantasy) and I think she far exceeds Rice and many authors at creating an intricate, internally consistent magical system that she primarily brings the listener into by showing rather than just telling. This complex magical system, the engaging characters, and the grand world building keep the whole trilogy really entertaining in spite of some rather lame dialog and a few elementary writing flaws (constant reminders of Daemon's cold, cruel smile and Jaenelle's sapphire eyes, etc. that elicit the "yeah, yeah, I got it already" feeling as you listen).

I got used to John Sharian and he's not bad as a narrator, but he gets a bit too melodramatic in his reading than I like.

Overall, I recommend the trilogy if you are looking for a good entertainment value since these books just don't have boring sections, but they are definitely for mature audiences. There is a great deal of graphic violence, some graphic sexual content, and hardest for me, some sections that deal with child molestation so go in prepared!

Most excellent!

This is a terrific book and excellent beginning to a series. I have waited impatiently for it to come out on audio for the longest time. John Sharian does a phenomenal job on all the books by Anne Bishop. Listen to this one! It's GREAT!

Favorite Series

I've read this book so many times I have lost count. This is my first time listening to it. I look forward to listening to the next two books that follow this and look forward to listening to these another half dozen times.

so so good

loved it with all my heart. it had everything from comodey to romance and back again