This was a much better read than Illusion, which I think suffered from the fact that it was just too damn long, and wading through the stuff about the French/Russian revolution was like slogging through Tom Hooper's Les Miserables with less singing. Volsky is a good writer, and clearly puts a lot of thought into her world building. Her weakness is storytelling. And I don't mean plotting. The plot is fine, even though it is a weird mish-mash of Julius Caesar and Beauty and the Beast. She is one of those writers that tells you things about the world that she finds interesting, but doesn't make an effort to make it interesting to the reader. That is probably the weakness of both the Sorcerer's Lady and Illusion; the author isn't very interested in interpersonal drama and character development, and struggles to make the reader care about the political strife that she clearly cares so much about. This book starts with Verran who runs away because she has to be married to a sorcerer, Fal Grizhni against her will, in a city that has canals. Lots of canals. What city in Europe has canals?(I know it is Venice).
Running away isn't something Verran does on the regular because she is characterized as being pretty obedient. So she gives in and gets married to this super powerful sorcerer, who she is more than a little afraid of. So, on paper this should be a pretty straight forward beauty and the beast story, where Verran learns more about her husband, becomes less afraid, and they eventually fall in love with each other. But no. That is not what happens.
What we get instead is the author tells us that this happens off screen somewhere. She tells us this when Verran gets into an argument with another character, that their marriage is not loveless, and that she is pregnant.
Like, why couldn't you show that? Why were there no scenes where there is at least an indication that they are trying to understand each other? You have 250 pages in which to do this. Why do we get chapters about what the villains are doing, whose names I can't for the life of me remember, when we know what they are doing because our protagonists are constantly talking/reacting to it.We know that Grizhni is being scapegoated by a corrupt government, but he is not really a character because we don't know his motivations or what he values with the exception of Verran. He is meant to be this larger than life figure in the politics of this world who is super OP and intimidating, but readers and Verran ( because it is her pov) rarely get glimpses of the man. It is like the romantic plot and the political overarching plot can't exist simultaneously in this book, so the subplot is hand waved away even though it is called the Sorcerer's Lady, so we are supposed to care about this relationship. We know Verran is trying to reach out to her husband. She is trying really hard. The most we get from Grizhni to indicate that he cares about her is that he glares less hard. Hell, I was more invested in the relationship she had with the mute servant, Nyd because it was more dynamic. So, when Fal Grizhni dies I kind of shrugged. He is one of the protagonists, there should be more of a reaction than this. ( )

(Amy) This is in the category of "Books I knew I'd want to read which got picked up and then subsumed into the greater mass of books until happening to catch my eye one day", which is a pretty large category for something with such a long and drawn-out name. In any case, I've enjoyed everything by Volsky I've ever read, so finding this in a used bookstore one day was a pleasant surprise . . . some four or five years ago or so. But, hey, I've read it now, which is what counts!

Beginning with a reluctant bride trying to escape her fate, the book quickly shifts into a dutiful wife coming to terms with her new situation, and finding that things are perhaps not as they appeared from outside.

Honestly, I'm not sure I either can or need to come up with more of a plot summary than that. The book is thoroughly enjoyable, as have been all of her books I've read, but summarizing the plot would in no way do it justice. It does have a bit of a feel of being an earlier work than some others I've read - a bit less polished, perhaps? - but is an excellent use of an afternoon, or equivalent length of time. I gather it has sequels, which I hope to find at some point.
( http://weblog.siliconcerebrate.com/zenos-library/2007/11/the-sorcerers-lady-paul... )

SORCERERS TRILOGY