The Hidden Goddess, by M.K. Hobson

The Hidden Goddess, by M.K. Hobson.  Ballantine Books, 2011.  374 pp.  978-0-553-59266-5.

... in which Emily and Dreadnought continue their adventures by battling high society, Russians, and vengeful Aztec goddesses.

The Hidden Goddess continues the story that was started in The Native Star.  Picking up only a few weeks after the first book left off, we start the story by getting an idea of how much Emily and Dreadnought's lives have changed since the events in The Native Star.  Emily is trying to make the transition from rural small town witch to the world of high-society New York City ladies.  Her fiance, Dreadnought Stanton, is being groomed to take over the leadership of one of the most influential magical institutes in the world.  Unfortunately for the two of them, several mysterious rival factions have plans of their own.  A group of fanatics in South America are preparing to resurrect an Aztec goddess, and a group of fanatics from Russia are trying to prevent the goddess's resurrection by putting a stop to all magic.  Caught in the middle, and constrained by the rules of New York's elite socialites, Emily has to find a way to prevent both the Aztecs and the Russians from succeeding in their plans, but she also has to find a way to help Dreadnought keep his new institute from falling to pieces.

The Native Star, by M.K. Hobson

The Native Star, by M.K. Hobson.  Ballantine Books, 2010.  387 pp.  978-0-553-59265-8.

... in which a small town witch gets caught up with warlocks, dark magic, zombies and a mysterious artifact.

The Native Star is set in an alternate history of post-Civil War America (1876, to be exact).  Ulysses S. Grant is president.  The country is still recovering from the war, which was partially won through use of magic.  The tides of industry and progress are starting to sweep across the country, and the changes are being felt in a small mining town in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California.  The town witch, Emily Edwards, finds that she is going out of business because people are increasingly turning to factory produced charms and potions and spells, instead of coming to her.  Emily makes the decision to cast a love spell on the most eligible bachelor in town, hoping that he'll marry her and her money woes will be over.  The spell backfires, but before Emily can fix it, she gets swept up in a zombie battle that results in her acquiring a rare, powerful artifact that hinders her ability to do magic.  Finding that more powerful forces will do anything to get the artifact, Emily is forced to flee her home.  Dreadnought Stanton (a deliberately pompous name) is a warlock visiting from New York City, and he agrees to accompany her to San Francisco, where magical scholars will hopefully be able to unlock the mystery of the artifact, called the Native Star.  Unfortunately, things do not go as planned, and Emily and Dreadnought are forced to flee across the country to New York.

Midnight Never Come, by Marie Brennan

Midnight Never Come, by Marie Brennan. Orbit Books, 2008. 379 pp. 978-0-316-02029-9.

...in which we see how England under the Virgin Queen Elizabeth was also ruled by a secret faerie queen Invidiana.

This book is a nice addition to a small subcategory of fantasy that I've recently started searching out: historical fantasy. This category consists of books set in a real historical context, in this case, Elizabethan England. We see real historical events taking place, but this time, these events are often happening with some influence from a hidden, unseen immortal faerie court. This secret faerie court exists alongside the human court, but is hidden from the eyes of most humans. The faerie queen, Invidiana, rules her court cruelly, leaving most of her subjects afraid of her. She also holds Elizabeth in her debt, as Elizabeth's rise from prisoner in the Tower of London to Queen of England was partially engineered by Invidiana. One member of the faerie court, Lady Lune, had once been in favor with Invidiana but has quickly fallen from grace. She ends up being sent from the underground catacombs of Invidiana's court, to masquerade as a human in Elizabeth's court. Along the way, she meets and falls in love with a human man in Elizabeth's court. Together, the two of them seek to find a way to break Invidiana's hold over Queen Elizabeth.

This period of England's history is already full of courtly intrigue, political strife, and social change. The Tudor dynasty has been covered in great length by authors of historical fiction, most notably by Philippa Gregory. Brennan does a very nice job of fleshing out the human side of England, without rehashing ground already covered by other authors. Her depiction of England's faerie court is very richly developed, conveying a real sense of what the mood of the court was, and how faerie culture differed from human culture. The main character, Lune, is nicely portrayed as an appropriately three dimensional character, when it could have been easy for Brennan to portray Lune as simply another courtier vying for her queen's favor. The main human character, Michael Deven, is slightly less developed than Lune, but not to the detriment of the story.

The plot is nicely developed, and for the most part it moves forward at a good pace. It lags a little in the middle, but picks back up in the last third. My major complaint with the pacing of the novel would be in the conclusion, where events accelerate enough that it gets a little muddled. It's not clear to me exactly how one of the final results came about, but I was generally satisfied with the positions in which the characters ended the novel.

I would recommend this to anyone with an interest in both English historical fiction and fantasy. It's not really for people with a strong preference for swords-and-sorcery type fantasy fiction, but if you like your fantasy to be a little subtler and more rooted in traditional folklore, with a dash of political intrigue, this is a book for you. Brennan also followed up with a sequel, In Ashes Lie, which is also a good read, and could probably be read without having read this one.