Kushiel's Dart — Jacqueline Carey

When Love cast me out, it was Cruelty who took pity on me.

The land of Terre d'Ange is a place of unsurpassing beauty and grace. It is said that angels found the land and saw it was good . . . and the ensuing race that rose from the seed of angels and men live by one simple rule: Love as thou wilt.

Phedre no Delaunay is a young woman who was born with a scarlet mote in her left eye. Sold into indentured servitude as a child, her bond is purchased by Anafiel Delaunay, a nobleman with a very special mission . . . and the first one to recognize who and what she is: one pricked by Kushiel's Dart, chosen to forever experience pain and pleasure as one.

Phedre is trained equally in the courtly arts and the talents of the bed-chamber, but, above all, the ability to observe, remember, and analyze. Almost as talented a spy as she is courtesan, Phedre stumbles upon a plot that threat-ens the very foundation of her homeland. Treachery sets her on her path; love and honor goad her further. And in the doing, it will take her to the edge of despair . . . and beyond. Hateful friend, loving enemy, beloved assassin; they can all wear the same glittering mask in this world, and Phedre will get but one chance to save all that she hold dear.

Set in a world of cunning poets, deadly courtiers, heroic traitors, and a truly Machiavellian villainess, this is a novel of grandeur, luxuriance, sacrifice, betrayal, and deeply laid conspiracies. Not since Dune has there been an epic on the scale of Kushiel's Dart--a massive tale about the violent death of an old age, and the birth of a new.