Maledicte

March 5, 2007
Robins's debut fantasy chronicles the fascinating transformation of 15-year-old Miranda from girlish street urchin to an attractive, audacious male courtier on a quest for love and vengeance. When the earl of Last decides he needs an heir, he plucks his bastard son, Janus, from the slums of the city of Murne—much to the dismay of Miranda, Janus's constant companion. Determined to find Janus and kill the earl of Last, she dresses as a boy and finds her way into the household of the dissolute Baron Vornatti, an enemy of Last. Trained in all the skills of a decadent and treacherous court by the lecherous baron and his servant Gilly—and possessed by Black-Winged Ani, a bloodthirsty goddess of love and vengeance—Miranda becomes Maledicte. This complex protagonist becomes both a pawn and a power in a darkly original world of doubted gods and declining civilization. Robins is a fantasist with a future.

Starred review from April 15, 2007
When the cruel Earl of Last reclaims his bastard son, Janus, from the slum district known as the Relicts, Janus's lover, Miranda, takes an oath of vengeance in the ruined temple of black-winged Ani, the supposedly dormant goddess of revenge and love. Miranda assumes the identity of a young man named Maledicte, making her way to the city and, with the help of a patron, insinuating herself into the highest rungs of society, where she reunites with Janus. Though she seems to have gotten what she wanted, Maledicte finds herself falling more and more under Ani's influence, and through her, the dark goddess threatens to destroy the kingdom. Robins's first novel makes good use of the romantic figure of the woman disguised as a boy in a story of personal discovery that is also sensual and seductive in its prose and its imagery. Highly recommended.

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.