Turning Darkness Into Light by Marie Brennan is a standalone book set in the world of The Memoirs of Lady Trent (A Natural History of Dragons and sequels). Rather than taking a naturalist view of dragons, like the earlier books, this one focusses on a significant translation of the Draconian language. I said it stands alone, but it does rather contain a spoiler for Within the Sanctuary of Wings, the fifth and final of the Memoirs of Lady Trent. So beware if you haven't read that book and want to remain unspoiled. Similarly, do not continue reading this review if you don't want to be spoiled for the end of the Memoirs of Lady Trent.

As the renowned granddaughter of Isabella Camherst (Lady Trent, of the riveting and daring Draconic adventure memoirs) Audrey Camherst has always known she, too, would want to make her scholarly mark upon a chosen field of study.

When Lord Gleinheigh recruits Audrey to decipher a series of ancient tablets holding the secrets of the ancient Draconean civilization, she has no idea that her research will plunge her into an intricate conspiracy, one meant to incite rebellion and invoke war. Alongside dearest childhood friend and fellow archeologist Kudshayn, must find proof of the conspiracy before it’s too late.

TURNING DARKNESS INTO LIGHT is a delightful fantasy of manners, the heir to the award-winning Natural History of Dragons series, a perfect stepping stone into an alternate Victorian-esque fantasy landscape.

This novel is told through a collection of diary entries, letters, and the translation in progress. Most of the narrative comes from Audrey's diary entries, with various letters, musings from Kudshayn's diary-like entries (but with more formality in mind on his part), and discussions in the footnotes of the translation flesh out the rest of the story. This does come with limitations, such that if something dramatic didn't happen to Audrey we didn't necessarily hear about it. That said, most of the dramatic moments did happen to Audrey and she was in a position to write about them afterwards, but that made some of the other media a bit lacklustre. For example, the first few religion-oriented musings from Kudshayn's journal were kind of dull to me, but I found his insights more interesting as we got closer to the end of the book. This style I think makes this book just slightly less compelling than the original Memoirs of Lady Trent series, because, while those books were written pseudo-autobiographically, they were written by the protagonist long after the events recounted in them. That makes them inherently feel a bit more coherent, while Turning Darkness Into Light is written in a much more immediate style, without any snarky comments added by an older protagonist looking back on her younger self. Putting it that way, perhaps it is just a matter of taste. And I want to stress that I still definitely enjoyed Turning Darkness Into Light and found myself hooked on the story. Even though a story about translating ancient tablets might sound boring, there were a lot of intriguing hooks to keep me interesting.

One does not need to have read the Memoirs of Lady Trent to enjoy Turning Darkness Into Light, but I think the reading experience is enhanced by greater familiarity with the world. Audrey, the protagonist, is the granddaughter of Lady Trent, and various members of her illustrious family make minor appearances in this book. I expect some of those references would be quite meaningless to readers unfamiliar with the earlier books, although the overarching story would still work.

I enjoyed Turning Darkness Into Light and I'm hoping there will be more books about Audrey or at least more books set in this world. I think there's plenty left to explore, even if this particular story was well-contained in this book. I recommend this book to fans of the Memoirs of Lady Trent (of course) and anyone interested by the topic of translation of a dead language in a fantasy world containing dragons.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: August 2019, Tor Books
Series: Stands alone, but same world as The Memoirs of Lady Trent
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

[this review will be up on my blog, acquadimore.wordpress.com, on August 17th]

This is the story of Audrey Camherst (Lady Trent's granddaughter) as she translates ancient tablets from a long-lost Draconean civilization in a place where anti-Draconean sentiment seems to be on the rise, and betrayal could be lurking on every corner. It's also the story of the Four who hatched from a single shell - yes, this novel has a story within a story, which is an aspect I loved.

You don't need to have read the Memoirs of Lady Trent series to understand Turning Darkness Into Light. However, I think it could be much more meaningful to you if you had, as some of the characters from that series are often mentioned, and as this novel is told entirely through letters, lists, journal entries and translations of ancient tablets. This is a really interesting choice, and I loved this somewhat mixed-media aspect, but this format isn't really suited to descriptions that don't feel like awkward infodumps, which is probably the reason I still have no idea how a Draconian looks like.

More than anything, Turning Darkness Into Light is about the importance of narratives, of the stories we choose to tell, and how they shape our understanding of ourselves as much as of "the other", and how nothing is ever "just a story". Writing fiction is, and has always been, inherently political.
It also makes some really good points about how bigotry isn't something in which only extremists engage, and the subtle, non-violent kind is just as dangerous as the unsubtle, violent one, as the two are tied together. One can't exist without the other.

The positives end there. I don't have much else to say; Audrey as a character didn't stand out that much to me, and neither did most characters, Cora being the only exception. I appreciated that the portrayal of an antagonistic relationship between a man and a woman that had an undercurrent of attraction but didn't turn into a romance, as an idea, but I didn't really believe it as much as I'd hoped. The format didn't help with that, as I felt it added a lot of distance between me and the characters.

This is a solid novel, if not a really memorable one, and the Memoirs of Lady Trent is one of the series that I'm considering and will maybe start this year.

A wonderful new entry in Brennan’s delightful, Victorian-Esque fantasy world. Set a decade or three after the end of the original Lady Trent quintet, this should appeal to existing fans and provide a good entry point for new readers as well, with a young heroine on a very different journey (less action, more scholarship; and more local politics, rather than inadvertent global interference) but with the same detail, excellent writing, and deeply rooted looks at gender, misogyny, racism, and the ways individuals can buck systems of oppression — all disguised as a fantasy of manners and dragons.