The Dead God’s Heart (Spring’s Arcana) duology by Lilith Saintcrow conclues, as the daughter of a Goddess of Spring comes face to face with her own destiny and her mother’s dark desires
Nat Drozdova has come far from the little house in Queens she lived in with her ailing mother and her uncle. Sheltered all her life, dropped into a world of very American (and not so American) Gods, she’s more than halfway crossed the country on a quest to retrieve the magical artifact that might save her mother’s life... and kill her in the process. With a God of Thieves as her traveling companion, Nat’s journey continues as she comes to terms with what her mother truly wants... and what she wants, to say nothing of the other Powers very interested in the journey of the daughter of the Goddess of Spring.
The Salt-Black Tree by Lilith Saintcrow completes her story.
I covered Spring’s Arcana last year here on the blog, and if you want an introduction to the universe, I recommend you read that. Here I will confine myself to the new things, plot-, theme-, and character-wise that we get as we continue with Nat’s story.
Once again, we are mostly in Nat’s point of view, with the occasional break for a shorter chapter for Dmitri (the aforementioned God of Thieves). Having visited the Well, and gotten a piece of what she needs, their journey takes them (as you can see on the map) toward California, and much more on the quest to reunite the titular piece of Arcana. Nat goes to meet more of the Gods and Goddesses of America, all of whom show a greater and larger interest in Nat as it becomes obvious to everyone, including her, that as her Mother continues to die, and Nat gathers the Arcana, she is starting to come into her own power.
Really, the first book is a fish-out-of-water story as a very sheltered young woman learns some hard facts that the universe, her mother, and herself, are not quite what she imagined. In this novel, she has started to become more keyed into what and how things are done. There’s still a learning curve, but Nat’s evolution in this novel is more toward the very key choice she is forced to make at the titular Salt-Black Tree in Louisiana. It’s a long trip there, and not by a direct route. So, along the way, Nat runs into relatives, gets a vehicle of her own, starts to exercise her power as a Goddess of Spring to be, and much more.
Although what her mother intended for Nat was clear to the reader (if not Nat herself) in the first book, what her mother really wants becomes absolutely clear to Nat in the second book. The author is playing with powerful mythological themes and ideas, and very old ones, in the story of a Goddess of Spring wanting to hold on and rejuvenate, even if it means that her daughter must be sacrificed to do it. Given Nat’s sheltered life and the forced closeness that her mother has imposed on her, the fact that it is even a possibility that she would reject self-annihilation is a testament to the power of programming, gaslighting, and control. Everybody has family issues, and the Powers of Saintcrow’s universe are absolutely no different in that regard.
Readers who read the first book closely also will realize that Dmitri has hung over the narrative and not only as a helper, but as a threat to Nat all this time. There has been a real sense in the first book, and it is continued here in the second, that Dima (Dmitri) is protecting Nat only because he wants the heart she is seeking, and thus needs her alive... until he doesn’t. That conflict does resolve, but in a clever and paradigm-breaking way. Nat is stepping into a new world, but she isn’t (and doesn’t have to be) her mother.
Besides all that, the details on locations, minor characters, and the portrait of the United States and its Gods and Goddesses continues to be a feature. Nat gets to meet a whole variety of more Gods, pays another visit to the Hotel of the Gods known as Elysium, and gets to explore some more wonderful landscapes across the country. Although I read this in an ebook, I can imagine that if you wanted a road trip across a good stretch of the country, these two books would make fine companions, especially when interacting with real-life locations. (The town of Deadwood, in South Dakota, for example, makes an early appearance, as does Southern California, the 101 along the Pacific and more. I particularly enjoyed sections of the travel narrative that have overlapped with my own journeys and adventures. Recalling and seeing those landscapes through Nat’s eyes has been a treat. And of course the new places Nat visits just fuel and further my own endless wanderlust.
One skill Saintcrow has in her series fiction, and the Dead God’s Heart series is no exception, is to tell a complete story in such a way that I don’t feel like I need more (even given the open-ended ending), but she creates secondary characters and complete worlds that are an absolute pleasure to visit and I wouldn’t mind another book or two in this universe. Given relatively recent attention on a particular author’s behavior, I feel confident now that if I want to recommend a contemporary fantasy about deities in the modern world, instead of a certain famous book by that famous author, I would point them toward Lilith Saintcrow’s Dead God’s Heart duology. It’s dollars to donuts that the existence of the aforementioned book made these books more possible and palatable to the publisher. But you can just get in the car with Dima and Nat and take a road trip with them.
(One last note: If you look at the map at the beginning of the book, and trace the route Nat takes, pay attention to the symbol it creates. Food for thought, and a clue, too, as to theme and plot, and the ultimate fate of the protagonists.)
Highlights:
- Fascinating, esoteric, Hidden World
- Excellent writing, of characters and of locales, places and events
- Why can't we get a series out of THESE books?
Reference: Saintcrow, Lilith. The Salt Black Tree [Tor Books, 2023].
POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.
