Sorrow's Light

by Freda Warrington

The Unseen has murdered Prince Tykavn's bride to be, and Iolithie becomes his new wife. Escaping Tykavn's religious obsessions, Iolithie meets the shape changer Sigurthur in the Stolen Land. However, he too is killed, and newly empowered as a shape changer, Iolithie must now face her husband.

Genres: Fantasy, Magic

Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Freda Warrington is an award-winning British author, known for her epic fantasy, vampire and supernatural novels.

“The Blood Wine books are addictive, thrilling reads that are impossible to put down and they definitely deserve more attention” – Worldhopping.net

Her earliest novels, the Blackbird series, were written and published in the 1980s. In the intervening years she has seen numerous novels of epic fantasy, supernatural and contemporary fantasy, vampires, dark romance, horror and alternative history published.

Her novel ELFLAND won the Romantic Times BEST FANTASY NOVEL Award in 2009, while her 1997 Dracula sequel DRACULA THE UNDEAD won the Dracula Society's BEST GOTHIC NOVEL Award.

Four of her novels (Dark Cathedral, Pagan Moon, Dracula the Undead, and The Amber Citadel) have been nominated or shortlisted for the British Fantasy Society's Best Novel award. The American Library Association placed MIDSUMMER NIGHT in its Top Ten for 2010.

Recently Titan Book reissued her popular romantic-gothic Blood Wine vampire series set in the 1920s - A Taste of Blood Wine, A Dance in Blood Velvet and The Dark Blood of Poppies - along with a brand new novel, The Dark Arts of Blood. In 2017, Telos Publishing will publish her first short story collection, NIGHTS OF BLOOD WINE, featuring fifteen lush dark tales - ten set in her Blood Wine world, and five others of gothic weirdness.

In 2003, Simon & Schuster published The Court of the Midnight King, an alternative history/ fantasy retelling of the story of King Richard III. To celebrate all the events surrounding the discovery of Richard III's remains in Leicester, The Court of the Midnight King is now available on Kindle and in paperback format. Most of her backlist titles, including the Blackbird series, Dracula the Undead, Dark Cathedral and Pagan Moon, can already be found on Kindle or will be available in the next few months.

Warrington has also seen numerous short stories published in anthologies and magazines. For further information, visit her website Freda Warrington

Born in Leicester, Warrington grew up in the Charnwood Forest area of Leicestershire. After completing high school, she trained at Loughborough College of Art and Design and worked in medical illustration and graphic design for some years. She eventually moved to full-time writing, and also still enjoys design, photography, art, jewellery-making and other crafts, travelling and conventions.

Series:
* Jewelfire
* Dark Cathedral
* Aetherial Tales
* Blackbird

Reviews

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sorrow's Light is written by one of my favourite authors. I picked it up because I was looking for a bit of comfort reading during two very stressful weeks and I find her writing beautiful but uncomplicated and easy to lose myself in.

Iolithie is the daughter of a village chief, chosen to be the prince's wife after his intended bride is killed crossing the stolen land. But once she is married to the prince she realises that he is unwell, his obsessions with completing religious rituals correctly is overwhelming him and destroying his health. When no one will listen to her she decides she has to cross the stolen land herself, to reach the capital city of Onafross and get help from her father-in-law the King.

I love the way Freda Warrington uses colour to describe her worlds. Every time I think about one of her books that I've read I get impressions of colours and crystals, purples and blues that stand out so strongly in my mind. I think it contributes massively to the way the worlds she creates just straight away come to life for me.

"We were sitting in the cabin, looking out through crystal panes at black mountains and an eggshell-blue sky. The valley through which we moved was the lushest green meadow I had ever seen."

"There were such colours in their glassy-silky coats; from a distance, they looked silvery-grey with touches of gold, but when I came closer I saw that colours of immense subtlety rippled through their skin and hair. The merest hints of blue and copper and plum, hypnotically lovely."

The prince is suffering from what sounds to me (who admittedly knows very little about it) like obsessive-compulsive disorder, someone in the book calls it 'disease of doubt'. I think the book does a good job of tackling what can be a sensitive subject. Iolithie knows that her husband is unwell and that his behaviour towards her is unfair but not entirely his fault. The book challenges the idea that it's "just how he is" or "he could stop it if he wanted" and presents it as an illness, something that has to be dealt with like any other illness and needs help and support to tackle.

Iolithie is just a normal 16-year-old young woman, there is nothing special about her except her stubbornness. She lives in a patriarchal society but refuses to accept that because she is a woman she should just accept what she is told and obey the men. She takes herself on a dangerous journey across the stolen lands to get help for her husband and she doesn't give up on what she knows to be true when everyone tells her she is wrong.

I enjoyed the story and very quickly became engrossed in it, I very nearly missed a train stop because of it. Iolithie is a brilliant character, she has her flaws but I think she makes a good role model for young women. I loved seeing her stand up for herself and not allow anyone to silence her. She will never stay where she's put and I admire her for that! There are a few points where magic solutions and help pop up perhaps a little too conveniently but that's the only flaw I can find in this.

I recommend this to anyone that enjoys fantasy, especially fantasy that focuses on women. It's a hidden gem that will delight if you seek it out.

[Pam Baddeley · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fantasy set in a divided land where the religion is used as a way to justify a rigid society based on sexual repression. The sun god repudiated his wife, the evening star, when she wouldn't obey him, and took a new wife, the earth. The evening star then became an evil hag and sent creatures called the Unseen, non human and prone to tearing human beings to pieces. These creatures took over the central part of the country and now the sun god worshippers live in the other two areas, separated by the area controlled by the evil goddess's minions. Evil thoughts can lay people open to her influence. The earth herself had to be rescued from the goddess by a hero prophet created by the sun god, who founded the religion.

At least, that is the official version. The story opens with a prologue where an aristocratic woman and her escort are travelling across the Unseen Land, from the part of the country where the king rules, to the other, more impoverished area where his younger son governs. She is supposed to marry the prince, but she and all but a few of her escort are massacred a couple of hours ride from the border. With chapter one, we switch to the viewpoint of sixteen year old Iolithe, daughter of a village ruler, en route with her parents to attend the marriage. This wasn't obvious at first as I had been left with the impression that the prologue referred to events years before. Iolithe briefly meets the prince, whom she likes, and is astounded the next day to learn that, with the death of his intended, the prince plans to marry her instead.

Iolithe soon learns that the prince is suffering from an extreme form of obsessive compulsive disorder. To begin with, he is functioning in public, but behind the bedroom door, he embarks on hours of ritual purification that he believes is necessary to ward off the goddess's influence. Iolithe tries to discuss it with him, but the need to fulfill his married duties makes him rapidly worse and he starts retaliating, eventually hitting her. When she turns to the head of the religion for help, she is told there is nothing wrong with the prince and is accused of being a disloyal wife. Even her parents, although they at least appear to believe her, wash their hands of the whole business. Iolithe then escapes to the Unseen Land, intending to cross it somehow and appeal to the prince's parents for help, but is soon caught up in a rather bewildering turn of events where time travel and shape shifting are some of the less weird things that happen to her.

I found this story rather random in the way it veers from one thing to another and is mostly unexplained apart from some vague mysticism. As might be expected, there turns out to be a different version of the central myth, where the sun god is a tyrant, the earth was their child which the goddess was protecting from him, and the prophet hero is a nasty piece of work who appears to still be around and to have been menacing Iolithe. Iolithe is all right as a character - she is independent and foolhardy, she has the best interests of the prince and their country at heart - but she does have to rely on some very convenient magic that only works for her at certain key points. Another problem I found is that many of the characters have practically unpronounceable names that continually caused me to stumble mentally while reading.

[Graculus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another bookswap, this time picked up because I remembered reading a trilogy by this author and enjoying it, so this standalone novel looked interesting.

The world in which Sorrow's Light is set is one in which much of the land has been taken over by those called The Unseen, against whom the people of the city are constantly on their guard. Their presence is felt particularly when the would-be bride of Prince Tykavn is killed by them on her journey from his father's court. Unprepared to take another bride from far away, Tykavn marries Iolithie, a local woman.

Once married Iolithie finds that her husband is afflicted by a belief in the need for religious ritual that drives him to the brink of madness. When nobody will listen to her concerns, she determines to head to his father's court, to seek help there, falling in with a mysterious stranger on her travels through the lands of The Unseen. It's only as she is travelling there that Iolithie discovers there is more to the world she thought she knew than meets the eye, and more to herself as well.

I found Sorrow's Light an enjoyable read and was particularly impressed by the author's account of Tykavn and his various manias. Iolithie too is an interesting character, an independent minded woman a world away from the feisty heroines much beloved by fantasy authors, whose determination alone is enough to see her to a happier end than she might have expected would come her way.

[K H · Rating 3 out of 5]

One star off for the too long section of her being a deer which did nothing for me.

And one star off for the last chapter which was literally just the wish fulfillment we fantasize about when we imagine our ex's coming back to say how wrong they treated us and how much they want us back.

Small things:

-The first quarter of the book seems to rest on the concept that the Stolen Land is safe in the day but the Unseen come out at night . . . yet later on it is obvious that the Unseen exist perfectly well in the daylight (they don't have any kind of vampire/ghost daylight aversion going on). So either I read the first part of the book wrong or it was never explained why they only attacked outside of Torbyrgi at night in the beginning of the book.
-The difference between the Ammian and Unseen religions -other than their origin myth- confused me. Reflecting now, I believe the Unseen were either agnostic or the type of Christian faith that values mythos for its lessons but doesn't take it as fact. Either way, their faith was revealed in a way that left me confused until after reading the book and reflecting which isn't a very good sign for your worldbuilding (this, as with everything in my reviews, was my experience. If you understood it on your first read and found it immersive good for you).
-Also I just really wanted to see the inside of the abandoned capital city and I'm sad we didn't get to scour the gloomy unswept streets and see crumbling piles of bones. It could've been fun!

Themes/things I really liked or found thought provoking:

Sans the last chapter, the last few chapters of this book had me wondering if Iolithie was an unreliable narrator. Below I'll list out the two possibilities for Iolithie's relationship with Tykavn and Mehaar.
So either we get the reality confirmed in the last chapter - Iolithie is perfect, Tykavn is toxic and/or abusive and it was only a matter of time until he hit/left Mehaar, and Mehaar only cares about herself (yet prior to this she is only described as sweet and patient and a good listener??) - OR Iolithie isn't actually that great, as confirmed by everyone except Sigurthur and Mathrathur. Iolithie's parents don't love her even though they try to, Tykavn tells her she only left for herself and was extremely argumentative during his illness which led him to hit her when he'd never felt the desire to hit Mehaar (side-note: it is never okay to hit a partner, but in this context he frames his physical abuse as a response to her severe verbal abuse which is an important difference to how she recounts the events), and Mehaar says Iolithie never actually loved her and in fact only looked down on her as a servant. I think this could have been fun. There were enough twists in this book as it is, why not make Iolithie a sleeper anti-hero?

This book had a weird time travel/chosen one mythology element which I didn't quite understand on my first reading, but one could probably find some interesting themes on religion and myth creation through it if they wanted to. I was split between putting this here or in 'small things' column, as it was just a shade wackier and unresolved than I tend to like things. I did however like this quote on religion:
'"Only that I wish I knew what to believe in . . . I don't believe in [the good god or the evil goddess]. What else is there?"
"Then I will tell you something," said Mathrathur. "They are only names for things we can't see, and things we feel. Your gods and goddesses can be as real as you want them to be."'
And there were also several spots in the book where the narrator said that religion and ritual should bring comfort to its practitioners and if it doesn't do that then perhaps it shouldn't be followed.

Good versus evil:
Not a new theme but still a gooder, especially in a genre bereft of the pure-good/pure-evil trope:
"'Evil does not emanate from a distant violet star. We always seem to see it as coming from outside ourselves; reposing in the hearts of our enemies but never in our own. But it lies inside all of us . . .'"

And my favorite part! Ableism as a theme! (disclaimer: I am not disabled nor do I suffer from OCD. And there were certain parts of this that I don't stand behind as being good (ex. calling people 'mad') but overall I thought this was a really solid effort for having ableism as a theme, and especially coming from the nineties (and especially especially after reading some of Sheri S. Tepper's work from that time! Yikes))
I won't give spoilers but there are two main parts to this theme - mental illness and medication and being differently abled and 'fixed'.
For the person who dealt with OCD (or 'the disease of doubt'), it is acknowledged that mental illness does blur somewhat with personality (ex. some of their quirks or preferences may or may not have come about because of their illness, but regardless, they are part of with them even in their good days or periods) AND strongly pushes a pro-medication stance, with the character taking medication returning to, and even being more strong in, the person they were before their disease started straining their everyday actions.
For the disabled person (who in this case had the tips of their fingers on opposite hands fused together since birth) the narrative shows their family's unsurety about them getting surgically 'fixed', but ultimately assisting in doing something that they think will help their relative. After the surgery the person becomes very despondent and finds tasks that they had done before harder, or even impossible, to accomplish. I thought this was a very good literary retort to the question "But if you suddenly could be cured you'd want to be wouldn't you?" (For those wondering about that question themself, disabled people I follow online usually state that they'd rather you'd work towards creating a less ableist world - this can mean things like making education, healthcare, and architecture accessible in places it currently isn't. I encourage you to seek out differently abled voices online and read what they have to say!)
"'. . . the cure can be more terrible than the disease.'"

All in all, I really liked the themes in this book but it just didn't click with me on an emotional level (it happens). I'd say read it for yourself. (Also I wish there was more of Iolithie and Sigurthur's relationship! They had such a cute dynamic and he was almost canonically asexual (depending on how you read one of his last lines) and I love me some ace rep!)

[Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful, strange fantasy novel. I haven't read anything quite like it before. The book just seeps with creativity, I can tell the author has a terrific imagination.

This book makes me want to find out more about Freda Warrington's works.

[Shoshanna Moy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Top ten list. Reread every year. Still resonates with me, like a comfortable doona- familiar words and strong yet believable characters that call me back home within the covers.