These four books form act one, which Katharine Kerr subheads as “Deverry”. As I said, it is satisfying.įinally, I can now say I’ve read the first four books in the Deverry Cycle – in their chronological order. She remembers Galrion (Nevyn) when they were both young and forgives him, the thing he has been waiting for for 400 years. In the end Jill remembers all of those lives she lived before. People marry other people they aren’t really well suited to all of the time. Life really isn’t all that romantic, great love stories end tragically or not. While it isn’t the romantic ending we imagined it feels more real for all of that. While I admire what he wants to do I can’t help but pity the girl he forces to marry him. In the end Rhodry marries a timid mouse of a woman who will eventually grow to hate him so that he can burn Slaith to the ground, the town where he has his life stolen from him, from which he is shipped of to Bardek to be sold as a slave, a town of slavers trafficking Deverry citizens to the southern Archipelago. Jill realizes that she has to leave Rhodry if she wants to study the dweomer and her and Rhodry’s heartbreak feels so real, after all that they have been through together. Perry’s escapes from Nevyn and finds his own place in the world with a woman as strange as he is. I think however the way this ends is satisfying. Nevyn’s battle with The Old One was a bit of a miss however, after being built up over four novels it seemed to end too quickly and easily. There are a lot of things to love: Jill and Salamander’s friendship as the travel about Bardek searching for Rhodry, Rhodry enslaved in Bardek, suffering from amnesia and trying to find a way to live out his life, Alaena finding Rhodry and losing him.

I know I’ve read it before I think at least twice but this was published in 1990, so it was a long time ago. It’s really a very satisfying book to read, and I think the best one of this series.

There are others but this is the final novel of the first Deverry series.

Dragonspell book series