Endurance

Assassin and ex-courtesan Green has saved a city and birthed a god (in 2009’s Green). Now she wants to move on—but she’s hunted by enemies from her past, the city council is mired in a power struggle and can’t provide much aid, and something is stalking goddesses, including the one Green serves. Lake deftly weaves complicated, stubborn characters into a plot that reaches the grandest and most personal scales without ever straining credulity. Green’s basically solitary nature, expressed in extensive internal monologue, is balanced by her feelings of tenderness, responsibility, and exasperation toward her fellow humans, the catlike Pardines, and the gods. Her pragmatic acceptance of killing is likewise mitigated by her refusal to trivialize death and her emotional reactions to pregnancy’s effects on her body, self-control, and expectations. This complex, lonesome, haunting novel will appeal to fans of Valente, Monette, and Miéville. (Nov.)