Golden Daughter (Tales of Goldstone Wood) by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

Anne Elisabeth Stengl has written yet another marvelous addition to her Tales of Goldstone Wood. For those of you new to this unique series, it is Christian fantasy with the attributes of a good, clean book. Be assured that you do not have to read the previous books to know what is going on in this one. Every story gives a new perspective, a new era, a new piece to a large puzzle. All the stories are on one timeline, but it is not such that you must know what happened first to understand what happens next. I, myself, was introduced to this series relatively recently and have not had the time to read all of them.

Sairu is one of several Golden Daughters of the Emperor, trained in combat, accuracy of perception, and complacency. When complete in their training, they are given in marriage as secret protectors of their husbands. Sairu is given the unusual assignment to a mistress.

As Sairu is faced with the impossible task of protecting the rather cold-hearted Lady Hariawan from an unseen evil of which no one will enlighten her, we meet a slave with secrets of his own, a lovable, fluffy cat we've loved before in previous books, the malignant Dragon who is attempting to throw down the heavens, and his new personal sidekick, Sunan, whom we have also met before, but under completely different circumstances.

Anne Elisabeth Stengl has, as usual, cleverly intertwined several storylines together, while weaving in humor, suspense, adventure, pain and loss, joy and relief, many parallels to the Bible, the world, and the Christian walk, and even managed a sweet, non-disgusting romance with all its complications, grievances, and triumphs. She has a special ability of conveying the complexities of the Realm of Dreams (paralleling the existing spiritual world) in such a way that the reader vaguely understands, but enough so to grasp the concept. The way she paints her characters pulls you into their lives, their minds, and their hearts, attaching you to their world. There were really only two characters I disliked--the Dragon and Lady Hariawan (Lady Hariawan wasn't a "bad guy," but she wasn't exactly good either). All the other bad guys were portrayed in such a way that I actually felt sorry for them. We find many new characters and more than a few old characters as well. It was exciting to see the beginning of Sunan, the continuance of Eanrin, and references to past things and future things.

There were a few places in which I thought Ms. Stengl's way of wording things slightly trite, especially when writing about the "spiritual" realm. This makes sense as she is trying to describe something even she cannot fully understand and must sometimes resort to phrases and descriptions familiarly associated with the fullness of a great God.

Save for that, I think this book is my favorite of the ones I have read. She is a wordsmith, and I enjoyed many humorous one-liners. The story became more and more thrilling as all the strings of the plot came together. I would love to find out what happens to these characters in future stories.