It is 1636, the reign of Charles I and a time of upheaval in the English Parliament. With pressure from the Puritans, pressure against Charles Stuart's spendthrift ways and his requests for more money to fund his war in Scotland, the Commons is being manipulated by a few to put Charles on trial. Overall, the tone is different from Midnight Never Come but Brennen takes that foundation and expands on it focusing in on historical events but also fleshing out on earlier characters and new challenges. It does require you to be paying a bit of attention, especially during the leaps in time but they are all flagged if you take a little bit of time. In hidden catacombs beneath London, a second Queen holds court: Invidiana, ruler of faerie England, and a dark mirror to the glory above. In the thirty years since Elizabeth ascended her throne, fae and mortal politics have become inextricably entwined, in secret alliances and ruthless betrayals whose existence is suspected only by a few.

Marie Brennan has fast become one of my favorite fantasy authors. This particular novel, A Star Shall Fall, is the third segment of her Onyx court series, which revolves around the notion that a Fae (fairie) court exists beneath the city of London. The Fae court mirrors the mortal court above and the intermingling of the two has profound effects on the great junctures in British history. This specific novel is nowhere near as fraught as its immediate predecessor, which dealt with the period of history during which parliament struggled to seize power from King Charles and the great fire. In Marie Brennan’s construct, the great fire was not a tragic accident, but rather the actions of a malevolent fire dragon…Without giving much of the conclusion away, In Ashes Lie culminates with the defeat and banishment of the Dragon to a passing Haley’s Comet.Disclaimer: I happen to know the author of this book. I don't think that this much changes my opinion of the book, and I don't think any of my readers are expecting journalistic standards of objectivity from me anyway, but I feel like I should note it. I could not understand at first why the story needed to keep jumping between the Great Fire and the preceding history, but eventually the reason became clear. The excitement of the fire raging through the old city of London broke up much of the rather tedious parliamentary shenanigans! As I got further into the book its pace increased and I enjoyed it very much. The very existence of the hidden faerie kingdom under London is inextricably linked to that of the city above ground, unbeknown to all but a very few humans with the future of life above and below ground depending on the bravery and joint actions of the key characters. As above, so below. There is a struggle above. King and Parliament vie for power. Below, there is rebellion in the faerie realm and the Onyx Court. And in a humble bakery in London’s Pudding Lane, a spark will ignite and force all, Roundhead and Cavalier, human and fae, to set aside their differences to save their homes from annihilation.

Like Mythago Wood this is closer to my idea of fantasy and what I want from a fantasy story. I want a story that has clever ideas, emotional and characters that can be connected with and getting away from the quest stereotypes, though they of course have their own place in fantasy. It’s a fascinating world. The details of the Onyx Court and its magic, the rituals of faerie, the intertwining of human and fae history. The third book, A Star Shall Fall, comes out on August 31 of this year. The protagonists of the tale are Lune, who hopes to better her precarious position within the cut-throat politics of Invididana’s “Onyx Court” by accepting an assignment to disguise herself as a mortal and spy on the humans, and Michael Deven, a young Englishman whose family has recently been elevated to the gentry, and whose ambitions lead him to work for Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth’s spymaster. It is inevitable, of course, that these two should meet, and that their agendas should clash over developing events The difference is that Lune knows most of what is afoot, and for much of the book Michael is ignorant. However, once he is assigned to uncover a suspected secret influence on the queen, it is not in his nature to leave any possibilities unexplored.I confess to being a poor historian, but even to my eye it's clear Brennan has done a great deal of research for this book. Every detail is meticulous and precise, evoking not a generic English fantasy setting but a very real and concrete place and time. Brennan blends historical detail with the fantastic so smoothly I barely noticed the seams. The crisis here for the Faerie world is a fundamental one: one of science versus magic, of rationalism versus mysticism. As the world above becomes more concerned with facts, there becomes less room for the superstition and the supernatural of the world below. This is the crisis that Lune faces, because she is aware, unlike the world above, that the two co-exist. It is further echoed in the fact that as the Onyx Court is fraying at its edges, Lune’s monarchy is under threat from a rival group, the Sanists, who feel that Lune needs replacing. There were too many plans which didn't work--at least seven--and while they were all used effectively in some form by the end of the book, that didn't lessen the fact that I had to force myself to keep reading yet another failure. Lucid dreaming can be very harmless, or it can be dangerous. I’ve done research and heard through word of mouth about lucid dreaming. Many people claim to have had encounters with demons while lucid dreaming. Many people say they have gone into sleep paralysis while attempting it as well. So this is not only kind of scary spiritually, but it can be hard on your health as well. The fact that this book has a character lucid dreaming in it only perpetuates the behavior and leads young children to try things they should not be getting into.

Brennan mixes in these books - as she did in her fist book - a well balanced blend of historical research and fantasy; and especially in A Star Shall Fall the mix of Victorian-age science blended in with the world of the fae and was very nicely done.I'm intrigued enough to suss out the sequel, but this felt like a complete enough story that I'm satisfied with it for now. I like that in a fantasy series. The book has a slow build and stuff didn't really seem to be really interesting until the last, like, 25% of the book.