2021 book 127

 Raymond Feist and Janny Wurts' Daughter of the Empire

I’m back to reading classic fantasy books I missed the first time around, and I’ve heard good things about Janny Wurts. I had some mixed feelings about this one, a start to a trilogy: it’s set in a pretty patriarchal world, where all the Lords are caught up in high-powered political games and there are a lot of rules involving honor. Our protagonist is a young girl whose father and brother are murdered, so now she's in charge of their estate (or whatever), and has to learn to play the game, avenge their deaths, avoid being murdered herself, and make her family name strong again. So I love all of that, I’m a sucker for books about politicking, and she’s clever and interesting (though sometimes too clever and making herself deadly enemies). But like there’s also a whole thing where she marries for an alliance and her husband is abusive and rapey to the slaves, and also she has a bunch of slaves murdered to keep a secret so she’s not so great either. I wish the slaves weren’t literally disposable, I guess. Though I imagine that is typical for slave owners. I guess I wish they didn’t own slaves?? Am I overthinking this? I’m not sure if I’ll read the rest of this series. B/B+.