Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this novel from the Hatchett Group in exchange for writing a review.
With Naamah's Kiss, Jacqueline Carey, whose reputation has been largely based on the Kushiel world novels, returns to that world.
This time, Carey decides to jump forward in time a few generations, so that she can create a new situation, a new protagonist, and explore new parts of the world. While the Phedre Trilogy and the Imriel Trilogy shared a lot of the same characters and geo-political situation, Naamah's Kiss jumps forward three generations, to a granddaughter of Alais living amongst the Maghuin Dhonn in Alba.
Things have changed for Terre D'Ange. The top-of-the-world D'Angelines are being left in their self-important intrigues and idylls. A new continent has been discovered in the West, Terra Nova. There are emissaries from places as distant as Ch'in. And yet, the D'Angelines are leaving others to mostly reap the benefits of all of this.
And into this decadent version of Terre D'Ange will come our heroine, Moirin. Half Alban and half D'Angeline, we follow her early life as it grows from a solitary existence with her mother in the wilderness, to the meeting with a member of the Dalraida's family. The circle of her existence and her experiences grows as Moirin develops. The tension between the two halves of her life is a constant undercurrent as she undertakes a journey to Terre D'Ange, and into the court of the Queen herself. And then beyond...
And in all of this, she follows Elua's command as filtered through Naamah: Love as thou wilt.
Unlike the previous two sets of novels, the sexual relationships here are not wrapped around tastes in dominance and submission. As a scion of Naamah, Moirin offers herself as she is. For all of that, even without the dominance and submission issues, Moirin's sexual nature draws her into a number of contradictory, and sometimes tragic relationships. Carey comes through with the tragic aspects of Moirin's path in life, as well as growing the sweet innocence of her life into mature adulthood.
While the travelogue aspects of the novel are interesting as always, once again, Carey shows that the strongest part of her fiction is her characterization. We get to see Moirin grow as a character, with a fractally complex path of challenges, advances and retreats. Its not a smooth path of development, just like it isn't in life. Also, too, the secondary characters come alive, with agendas, dreams and thoughts of their own, which intersect with Moirin in complex ways.
It seems to me that Carey has learned a lot from her previous novels and has definitely grown as a writer since Kushiel's Dart, in a good way.
The novel does come up with an ending that could end Moirin's story, however I suspect there will be further volumes of her tale, and I would gladly read them.
I also think that this novel might work for those readers who might be curious as to the world of Terre D'Ange and do not find the D/s sexual situations of the other trilogies to be to their liking. There is plenty of sex (and yes there is violence) in this novel, and there is f/f content as well, but as a whole, its not as drenched as the other novels sometimes were.
In addition,with moving ahead three generations, this novel could work as an entry point to readers in the series. I still think that starting at the beginning is a good policy, but sort of like how Erikson's Midnight Tides, book five of the Malazan series, can serve as an alternate entree into that world, I think Naamah's Kiss can also serve in that manner.
Overall, I am very well satisfied with the novel. One criticism sticks out. Ms. Carey, I love the maps in your novels. (My love of maps of all kinds gets a thrill from those). What I think you also need at this point is a timeline of events and people. It took some puzzling to figure out what happened when, but I think your history is complex enough to need one for easy reference.