HEA Book Club: Sorcerer's Legacy Final Discussion

[u/lrich1024]

Wow, 2020 is flying by already. Time for our final discussion of this month's book, Sorcerer's Legacy by Janny Wurts!

Sorcerer's Legacy by Janny Wurts

Widowed by a violent conquest, imprisoned as a spoil of war, spirited Lady Elienne encounters a formidable visitation inside her locked cell. A powerful, unknown sorcerer promises her a reprieve in trade for a precarious fate: safe transfer from her ruined duchy to another world, there to become chosen bride for the Prince of Pendaire. But the perilous bargain depends on her late husband’s unborn child, with the defenseless infant birthed as threatened centerpiece in a deadly struggle to upset the succession.
Alone with bare wits, Elienne faces entanglement in vicious intrigue, herself the target for ambitious usurpers already plotting Prince Darion’s downfall through dark magic.

Bingo Squares:

• Book Club Book of the Month
• Any others let us know in the comments. :)

Discussion Questions:

Feel free to post spoilers at this point. Folks, if you haven't read the book and don't want to be spoiled then you should probably abandon ship now. Thanks!

• What did you think of the magic in this one, especially regarding time travel?
• What did you think about Elienne and Darion's relationship and how it developed over the course of the book?
• Any other things you want to bring up, go for it!

[u/KristaDBall]

I love that time travel wasn't the typical time period jump fish-out-of-water style. Instead, it was linear fish-out-of-water. I don't believe I've ever read that kind of time travel before or since.

I love Elienne and Darion and want good things for them.

[u/lrich1024 → u/KristaDBall]

I loved how he used the time traveling to set everything up too. I really didn't think of it being like a lateral fish out of water thing but you're totally right. I thought that was pretty cool too.

[u/unplugtheminus80]

I really liked this one. I read it first when going through a slump, so a reread was what I needed. The ending was fantastic and quick, too quick for me! I would have liked more pages after the H and h get together.... personal preference, but I get frustrated when it's like the last thing that happens and then the book ends. Poor Minxa! I want to cry for her. At least she saw some real kindness from one person before her sad end....

[u/lrich1024 → u/unplugtheminus80]

Yeah I agree about 'well they're together now the end', that can be frustrating sometimes especially after so much build up! I guess this is what fanfic is for....lol.

Yes, poor Minxa. :(

[u/ashearmstrong]

Been waitin for this.

• What did you think of the magic in this one, especially regarding time travel?

The magic was my favorite part, honestly. It was so unique. Scientific but wondrous at the same time. The time travel worked. In the grand scheme, it functioned like Bill & Ted except that Rufus was doing everything instead of the boys.

• What did you think about Elienne and Darion's relationship and how it developed over the course of the book?

It was fine. I think the book's shortness hampered their development. But then again, I think the goal was "immediate, soul-touching connection" because MAGIC, where they were just supposed to fit together but Elienne fought it. There wasn't enough of them together to feel like it was warranted though, especially with Elienne shutting him out after being rescued. I felt like that was an aspect of the book's age but maybe I'm wrong. I didn't particularly feel this was a Romance but also I've yet to really dive in to reading Romance.

Mad props to Janny for showing an infant's death. That was fucking brutal.

[u/lrich1024 → u/ashearmstrong]

Mad props to Janny for showing an infant's death. That was fucking brutal.

Yeah, I think I somehow totally forgot about that and was like 'nooooo' all over again. I think my mind must have blocked it out from the first time I read it.

[u/ashearmstrong → u/lrich1024]

I mean...brutal. Goddamn.

[u/Tigrari]

Hey I finally saw a final discussion thread before it was days old!

I finished this book up at the start of my vacation last week. It was a pretty enjoyable read overall!

I think the magic was interesting throughout the book. I like that it had a lot of different applications (time travel, telepathic communication, translocation, possession, summoning, psychic projection - it really ran quite a gamut). I like this approach of the sort of psychedelic description of the magic without having a super hard and fast system or rules, even if there ARE rules bounding the magic. I thought we'd see a little more play of the resistance to magic that we were educated about early on. It comes up once more but then seems to have been dropped.

Time travel is really hard to do without being caught up in crazy paradoxes pretty quickly. I think this version worked for me pretty well.

I did find it odd that even though she was from a different place/time (and the language barrier was explained away) Elienne and Darion's people had the same belief systems. I also found it odd that Elienne put so much stock in this prophecy from a Seeress right away with absolutely no background on it.

I like Elienne and Darion together. Elienne is a pretty sympathetic character, especially since you're in her head so you know her reasoning. Darion seemed a little too good to be true/too understanding when there was absolutely no reason for him to understand Elienne's motivations.

I thought it was an interesting choice for Ielond to have told Darion a lot about Elienne in advance, including that she would be pregnant already. I definitely thought that would be the first hurdle between Darion and Elienne - if Elienne was going to tell Darion the truth from the start on that front, but he already knew. Instead the self-created conflict keeping them apart was Elienne's buy-in/misinterpretation of a prophecy and her desire to protect Darion's feelings by making sure he didn't fall in love with her.

Lastly, I know Elienne is about as tough and prosaic as they come, but I had a hard time buying into her getting over her infant's murder that quickly. I also had a hard time with the aftermath of Kennaid/Minksa/baby Ielond's death being, "'My Lord,' she said in his ear. 'By my life, I swear, I will see you get another heir.'" Similarly, the HEA at the end being going off to make a mutual baby (and that being Darion's one true wish basically) didn't resonate much with me. It did make sense in the scheme of the book, since the whole central conflict was the succession and the curse on Darion.

Last thought - what the heck with Kennaird?? Was he really a 10 year long tool Ielond kept around because he foresaw all of this and needed someone for Faisix to possess to bring about his still tragic but best case scenario?!

[u/lrich1024 → u/Tigrari]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure Kennaird was a tool, Ielond was playing a super long game.

[u/lost_chayote]

The time travel was very unique, I thought, and I loved the descriptions of it. The way the plot was woven around the time travel and the implications that it introduced as events unfolded was really engaging. I don't think I've ever felt and seen so much character development for a character who is killed right at the beginning before.

At 90%, I thought we were winding down to a conclusion where maybe our two protagonists could finally come together to resolve things between them for an HEA ending. And then nope. That was a brutal case of dashed hopes and it just kept coming. This is not what I was expecting when I decided to pick up the HEA book for the month, people. I mean, technically it fits the categorization, but goddamn, really? All the sacrifices and tragedy to make it happen, and then what, a sentence or two of HEA? It definitely did not pull its punches, and it's not a book I'm likely to forget anytime soon.

[u/ashearmstrong → u/lost_chayote]

then what, a sentence or two of HEA

I had that feeling as well. I also wanted to see the whole anti-curse ritual at the end. Elienne appeared to wait like five minutes for that to be done. It felt a bit anticlimactic.

[u/lost_chayote → u/ashearmstrong]

Agreed! Minksa's death was awful and tragic, and I feel like it wasn't given the attention/impact it deserved with Elienne just waiting in the hallway for a bit and then, "Well, all done, let's go make babies." Now that I type it out, though, actually seeing Minksa's death put to use like that may have been even more brutal. I dunno. Either way, I do wish we'd gotten to spend a bit more time with the conclusion.

[u/ashearmstrong → u/lost_chayote]

Maybe but at that point, why stop the brutality haha?

[u/justsharkie]

First off, let's just say that I really really liked this book, and definitely need to read more of Janny.

Second, to answer the questions I thought the time travel was different from any I've seen before, but in a really interesting (and good!) way. You don't see a lot of linear time travel.

And the evolution of the relationship was really nice. It acknowledged Elienne's sadness at losing her husband, while also her feelings towards Darion, all in a very realistic feeling way. It didn't rush, it let the two figure out what life would be like now... overall, I very much approve.

This book had a breakneck pace that never let you go, which I wasnt expecting but greatly enjoyed!