Angel with the Sword (Merovingen Nights, Book 1)

Before I talk about the story, you need to know two things about the book. First, the story is set in the universe of the Union-Alliance novels, yet you don't need those books to know what's going on. The book is a stand alone and has lots of information in the back with maps, chapters on history, fashion and even language. Second, this was meant to be the first in a series of books, very much like the Thieves' World series, but instead of a walled city of the Middle-Ages filled with magic and crime, this was more like a city-state of Italy (during the Renaissance) filled with politics and, sometimes, guns. And the series did go on as other authors added their own skill and stories to the books that followed. Now, for the story. Like all of her books, C.J. Cherryh starts small, with a character we think of as normal and a daily event. Altair Jones, the main female character, rescues a man who is tossed into one of the canals. This is normal - bodies are always being tossed in by gangs. But he lived and happens to be a high-born. He also happens to be in the middle of something that seems to get bigger and bigger as the story moves along. By saving him Altair might have also gotten herself involved with a mess that could end up with HER in the canals. The dangers increase as the knots in this plot are untied and we get close to the truth about what is going on and why. C.J. Cherryh is an artist, crafting the story carefully from start to finish, she never wastes a page, a word or a letter. This is a must for any of her fans or a good book to start with for people who don't know her works. I plan to find the rest to see how well the saga went!

Angel with a Sword is not the second book in the Merovigen Nights series.It is a seprate book written beforehand by C.J Cherryh alone, with no colaboration with any other authors.The Merovingen Nights series is a follow up to this book and features seperate stories by different authors which are linked up time-wise so that they read like a complete novel.These stories also are written from the veiw-point of different characters in the overall book-ie.a minor charactor in one story would the main character in another and so on.

I have read "Angel with the Sword" more times than I can count and the reasons for doing so are myriad. The main character, Altain Jones, is an engaging young woman, tough, streetwise, and her romantic prospect, Tom Mondragon, is an aristocrat who nevertheless knows how to fight dirty. Their romance is my favorite part of these books, but the science-fiction element is also quite wonderful. They are set in a futuristic world that has somewhat regressed to Renaissance times. Jones is a poleboater in Merovingen, a city somewhat like Venice. The other reason I love the Merovingen Nights books is that they are short stories cut up and intertwined--I think they call it "braided" style. That way you can follow your favorite characters as they interact with the other ones. Many of my other favorite authors have written in these "anthologies," but C.J. Cherryh's Jones and Mondragon stories are the best, which is why I love the introductory book, solely written by her, all about them.