Blog Tour: Cobweb Bride

 

Cobweb Bride
(Cobweb Bride Trilogy #1)
by Vera Nazarian
Adult Fantasy/Mythology
July 15th 2013 by Norilana Books
 
Summary

Many are called… She alone can save the world and become Death's bride.
 
COBWEB BRIDE (Cobweb Bride Trilogy, Book One) is a history-flavored fantasy novel with romantic elements of the Persephone myth, about Death's ultimatum to the world.
 
What if you killed someone and then fell in love with them?
 
In an alternate Renaissance world, somewhere in an imaginary "pocket" of Europe called the Kingdom of Lethe, Death comes, in the form of a grim Spaniard, to claim his Bride. Until she is found, in a single time-stopping moment all dying stops. There is no relief for the mortally wounded and the terminally ill....
 
Covered in white cobwebs of a thousand snow spiders she lies in the darkness... Her skin is cold as snow... Her eyes frozen... Her gaze, fiercely alive...
 
While kings and emperors send expeditions to search for a suitable Bride for Death, armies of the undead wage an endless war... A black knight roams the forest at the command of his undead father… Spies and political treacheries abound at the imperial Silver Court.... Murdered lovers find themselves locked in the realm of the living...
 
Look closer — through the cobweb filaments of her hair and along each strand shine stars...
 
And one small village girl, Percy—an unwanted, ungainly middle daughter—is faced with the responsibility of granting her dying grandmother the desperate release she needs.
 
As a result, Percy joins the crowds of other young women of the land in a desperate quest to Death's own mysterious holding in the deepest forests of the North…
 
And everyone is trying to stop her.

Purchase from:
   
 
Trade Hardcover
(First Edition)
ISBN-13: 978-1-60762-112-6
ISBN-10: 1-60762-112-6
$24.95 US / 20.00 UK
Trade Paperback
ISBN-13: 978-1-60762-113-3
ISBN-10: 1-60762-113-4
$14.95 US / 12.00 UK
Ebook (multi-format)
ISBN-13: 978-1-60762-114-0
ISBN-10: 1-60762-114-2
Kindle: B00DK02MHG
$5.99
 
 
My Review

I thought the premise of this story was really interesting. I loved the play off of the Greek myth of Hades (Death) and Persephone (Percy). I also thought the concept of death being frozen quite intriguing. I've never really thought of the ramifications that would stem from that. You see, Death wants his bride, whom he cannot find, so he doesn't take anyone in death even if they physically are dead. This means that their spirits or living essence remains in their defeated bodies. This will not change until his bride comes to him. The story tells of him visiting the land and proclaiming his decision and search, the effects this has, and the characters responses. We get a wide view, but then also follow a few groups of individuals on their separate journeys and also as they meet up with each other at one point or another.

So now that you understand the general gist of the story, I have to say that it is a rather macabre and gruesome one, especially the first third or more through. It was so outrageous and gory that after I had read about soldiers that should be dead with missing limbs and whatnot, but were still living and fighting, I just couldn't take it when I read about a farmer whose pig wouldn't die as he was slaughtering him and the pig kept squealing and his daughter ran from the house screaming. I actually started laughing. Weird response, I know. But the story was so crazy! If I would change one thing, I would have appreciated a condensed version of these types of events in the book. I think after getting the gist, I could pass on any further descriptive gory details. Now for someone who enjoys this type of thing or who is really into zombies, this might be great reading. Not so much for me. There were also some crass comments as well about the situation and about girls' bodies that were too much for me.

Here is one example of the situation in the book and how one character felt about it:
"No," the Infanta repeated. "It is a portion of my final will that this man first come and speak with me, so that I can understand why he did this deed. Besides, you know he literally cannot die now. You can only ruin his body, with him still inhabiting it, a macabre horror that I beg you not to enact. Thus, instead, I must take the chance to understand him."
This almost immediately connected me to the Infanta. I really liked her thoughts and her decisions after what happened to her. This was in great contrast to another character whose body was dead, but who decided to fight Death's search so that he could live forever, and if he had to kill others so that they would be in the same state as him, so be it. That is just so wrong to me. I had debated stopping at a point just before this, but I did want to know what happened and if Percy was Death's Cobweb Bride. I struggled on and then after about half-way through the book the story didn't contain as much of the macabre situations or descriptions as in the first part. The characters and their journeys also come to the forefront of the story. This part of the book I actually really enjoyed. I really liked Percy, the Black Knight, the Infanta and her companion, and Death himself. I liked their actions and the small moments of thoughts, meaningful looks, and conversations.

Here is a quote I really liked from Death:
"Since the dawn of existence, you mortals have feared dying, feared the unknown and the pain of it, and yet, pain is a part of life, not death. And I–I am the first moment after pain ceases," he pronounced. "It is life that fights and struggles and rages; life, that tears at you in its last agonizing throes to hold on, even if but for one futile instant longer. . . . Whereas I, I come softly when it is all done."
This was like a nugget of wisdom among a crazy situation. The ending about killed me because, of course, this isn't a stand-alone, so there will be two more books to finish the story. There were the beginnings of a couple of love stories, but I don't know how they will turn out and who Death's bride is. I thought I knew, but I was wrong (unless there is a serious twist later).

If you don't mind the macabre content and you would like to read a very unique Gothic tale, then I would recommend picking this up.
 
Content: Quite a bit of violence, some crass comments/descriptions, and some innuendo.
Source: I received a copy from the tour host, which did not affect my review in any way.
 


 
About the Author

Vera Nazarian is a two-time Nebula Award® Finalist and a member of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. She immigrated to the USA from the former USSR as a kid, sold her first story at 17, and has been published in numerous anthologies and magazines, honorably mentioned in Year’s Best volumes, and translated into eight languages.

Vera made her novelist debut with the critically acclaimed Dreams of the Compass Rose, followed by Lords of Rainbow. Her novella The Clock King and the Queen of the Hourglass with an introduction by Charles de Lint made the 2005 Locus Recommended Reading List. Her debut collection Salt of the Air with an introduction by Gene Wolfe contains the 2007 Nebula Award-nominated “The Story of Love.”

Other work includes the 2008 Nebula Finalist novella The Duke in His Castle, science fiction collection After the Sundial (2010), The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration (2010), and four Jane Austen parodies, Mansfield Park and Mummies (2009), Northanger Abbey and Angels and Dragons (2010), Pride and Platypus: Mr. Darcy’s Dreadful Secret (2012), and Pagan Persuasion: All Olympus Descends on Regency (forthcoming), all part of her Supernatural Jane Austen Series.
 
After many years in Los Angeles, Vera now lives in a small town in Vermont. She uses her Armenian sense of humor and her Russian sense of suffering to bake conflicted pirozhki and make art. In addition to being a writer, philosopher, and award-winning artist, she is also the publisher of Norilana Books.


Tour-wide Giveaway:
1 - hardcover of Cobweb Bride
3 - trade paperbacks of Cobweb Bride
 
Individual Site Giveaway:
5 - ebooks of Cobweb Bride (INT)

 

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