Emerald House Rising, Peg Kerr

A surprisingly good read, losts in the mountains of old paperbacks.

Emerald House Rising
Peg Kerr
ISBN: 0446603937
Read August 1, 2014

Jena Gemcutter works with her father, cutting and setting the best and brightest gems for the nobility and merchants of the kingdom.  She's submitted her application to become a journeyman jewelsmith, but all of her hopes and dreams for her future are upset by the arrival of a strange magical noble, and the sudden discovery of her own aptitude for magic.

I love just about everything about this book:

The concept of a Diadem Court, where the line of succession travels between several different royal families.

The idea of magical partnerships creating a more stable and thus more powerful force by balancing out the weaknesses and blind spots of the respective partners.  (one quibble; I would have liked more if the energy manifested was required to be masculine or feminine, rather than the people themselves always having to be in a male/female partnership).

The conflict between magicians and nobility was well created and thought out.  The resulting "invisible services" industry was a very nice touch, as was the shadowy ranks of the magical nobles themselves.

The sub-plot of Jena's conflicted interests in both magic and gemcrafting was very well handled, as was the development of her relationships and her conflicted feelings about her fiance.  I loved that these things remained points of difficulty for her, and that she didn't simply embrace her new abilities and instantly forget about her previous desires or life goals (that happens way too often in fantasy stories).

Finally, the story ends in a solid and natural place, with no pussyfooting around for sequels, but with enough of the world left untapped that a companion book could naturally occur - or not.  That is also all too rare for fantasy stories.

The antagonist could have been a bit stronger, and the overall plotting was a smidge meandering, but these were very minor quibbles in an otherwise excellent read.

Overall, I was strongly reminded of Rachel Neumeier's House of Shadows.