Closer to Home by Mercedes Lackey

A Spoiler-Free Review

The Herald Spy series starts off right where Collegium Chronicles left off, with Mags at the end of his first Herald Circuit. We are sans Lena and Bear and don’t find out what happened to them for at least a chapter. As this is not specifically Mag’s story, we get the second POV of Amily, which makes a nice change.

I knew Amily’s choosing was going to happen due to vaguely perusing the Companion list on the Valdemar Wiki. I knew and yet it still made me tear up. The whole scene of Mags and Dallen trying in vain to save Nikolas was probably what did it. Aaand then I got just as confused as Mags. The whole situation was just… wow.

It’s semi-interesting that there’s a big to-do here about marriage and the culture of the court surrounding marriage. Valdemar both enlightened in the way they treat women but also not. The high born ones are very marriage oriented and don’t realize there are options other than marriage open to them… aside from a position in the Guard apparently. I guess technically there’s other jobs open for women outside of Heralds, Bards, and Healers, but no one apparently thinks about them in high born circles. The timeframe makes all this make sense, it’s just… uh… interesting, is all.

At the same time, it’s really slammed over our heads that Valdemar society takes it cues from our own historical views towards women. It’s also slammed over our heads how our main characters don’t track with that viewpoint. The whole thing was very heavy handed, in my opinion.

Found the Romeo and Juliet B-plot highly predictable. Saw it coming as soon as Violetta became a POV character and we knew of the feud. And ya know, for all Amily’s worry about Violetta and knowing Violetta’s lovesick for Brand, not once does she think to intervene on that account. Oh no, no one who has knowledge of that debacle dares try to switch which daughter Brand must marry. Oy vey. I hate this so much.

I was, however, somewhat pleased with how things turned out. I won’t spoil that here, but it was not a Romeo and Juliet ending nor the sappy romantic ending I was envisioning. Got caught up in Violetta’s head, I think. Anyway, it was more satisfying than I was expecting.