Welcome to week three of our readalong of Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel series.  Kushiel’s Avatar is the third in the series and I am loving it so far.  All free to join in, if you’ve already read this then please join in with the comments.  The full schedule is here and this week Emily at Emma Wolf is our lovely host.  Before moving on: a word of warning – there will be spoilers lurking below.

So, moving swiftly on:

1. If I recall correctly, this is the first book (and this is the first portion of the book) that takes us outside of (what is now) Europe and into (what is now) the Arab world. What are your thoughts?

I love all the travelling and more to the point the attention to detail that Carey brings in describing a place and bringing it off the page.  She always pays attention to the food and clothing and local traditions.

2. We see the Pharaoh laughing at Phedre, saying that if she had only trusted him, it would have saved them a lot of time. We saw this sort of thing play out before with Kazan and Bariquel. Do you think Phedre should be more trusting or do you think she is right to be so cautious?

I think that Phedre can be quite cautious but in this instance I think she was right to be so.  This is a Pharaoh – you don’t want to go wading in with your big feet and upsetting him do you – anything could happen.  Plus, I don’t think her extra caution caused any real delay to be honest.  And, it definitely gave the Pharaoh a laugh out loud moment and that can’t be a bad thing after all and it served to relieve the tension a little.

3. More of the story of Imriel and the two other kidnapped children unfold. What do you think now? Was Imriel chosen randomly? Is this the gods punishing Melisande or D’Angelines generally?

I really don’t think Imriel was chosen at random, there are simply too many coincidences for me to feel it was just purely accidental.  Plus – if we are to believe that this is part of a punishment from one of the Gods then it definitely can’t be random can it?  Course, I’m happy to be wrong – which is just as well as I frequently am!

4. More on Imriel: we haven’t met him yet, but we’ve heard a lot about him and how he acted in different situations. So far, what do you think of him?

He’s definitely got a little bit of derring-do in him hasn’t he!  Considering the terrifying series of events that have taken place he still has the guts to stick up for himself.  I was very impressed with him and wherever he happens to be right now I hope he’s managing to hold himself together.

5. What are your thoughts on the skotophagotis? Superstition and coincidence or real power?

I’m loving this element to the story.  I think it could be just again a case of coincidence where people’s real fear or terror of the situation causes almost a self fullfilling prophecy type situation.  These skotophasgotis are certainly scary critters though.  It’s like they’ve created a sort of mass hysteria amongst the people.  I guess if one of those stepped in your path you probably would fall over and hurt yourself afterwards because you would be so concerned about something bad happening that you wouldn’t be paying proper attention.

I love the scenes with Joscelin and Phedre – they’re so sort of chilled with each other at the moment.  It made me laugh when Phedre said something like – and I’m not quoting – that she would probably be dead if it wasn’t for Joscelin – and he said yes, if he wasn’t around she’d probably die from melodrama – okay, I’m not getting the quote right at all but it made me laugh.

The other participants:

1. Susan at Dab of Darkness
2. Allie at Tethyan Books
3. Lisa at Over the Effing Rainbow
4. Me at Lynn’s Book Blog
5. Emily at Emma Wolf