Shadows on the Moon

by Zoe Marriott

[wyvernfriend]

This year I discovered Zoe Marriott and I believe I have discovered an author I truly enjoy. I look forward to each one and sometimes use them as a bribe to get through others that are proving a bit of a slog. Though I must admit I have approached some of them with trepidation. What if this one won't be as good, what if I'm disappointed with this one?

And each one has surprised me by sucking me in and engaging me fully. This one more than some others. I could almost feel the heavy robes and it almost felt like blasphemy to sit down with a coffee instead of sitting down to a proper tea. Though reading while going through a tea ceremony would have been impolite too!

This is not to say that this is a perfect book and that there aren't moments where it lurched a bit or where I could see what the author was doing with the character, but it was damned close for me.

This is the story of Suzume and her three lives. The first is where she witnesses her family being massacred. Then her mother marries a man who has wanted her for many years and doesn't necessarily want her daughter as well. During this time Suzume finds that she can work with shadows and finds that this skill helps her cover up the fact that she is cutting herself to make herself feel better.

Her second life is as Rin, a lowly kitchen servant. I saw someone say that this was improbable but a lot of people don't notice servants. Many people don't notice the people who serve them in shops either (I know this from experience). When someone is somewhere you don't expect them to be, behaving in a way different from the normal you're used to with them, you can gloss over them quite easily. No-one expects the daughter of a noble house to be a drudge in a kitchen, combine this with her ability to shadow-weave and you've got a very good disguise.

Her third life is as Yue starts when she runs away, thinking she's killed her mother, and saves Akira, who is also a shadow weaver, and offers her help with a plan to get her revenge on her wicked step-father. Throughout all of this is woven Otieno who comes from a land where people use shadow-weaving and who loves Suzume, no matter what mask she's wearing. It turns out that Akira is an Oyama, or man who played the role of a woman in theatre and was good enough to become the Shadow bride of a prince. Bishounen are a part of Japanese culture and this was an intersesting use of that concept. It was interesting to have someone in the story for whom this was normal and apart from the moment of dissonance when Suzume realises the truth, is accepted as just part of Akira's character. As she presents as female, female pronouns are used, which is how I would address a friend in a similar situation.

The training, the work, the characters all made this a great story for me, other people's mileages may vary but it's one of my favourite reads of 2012.