Knot of Shadows (A Penric & Desdemona Novella in the World of the Five Gods) by Lois McMaster Bujold is not your ordinary murder mystery, but anything involving Temple sorcerer Penric and his chaos demon, Desdemona, is bound to be anything but ordinary. In this case, they’re called in to investigate when a drowning victim turns out to be not quite dead. The animated corpse houses two souls, sundered from the care of their gods, the result of vile and highly illegal death magic. But is the corpse the victim or the perpetrator, a person so desperate to avenge a wrong that they are willing to sacrifice their own soul?

As usual for these novellas, the story is intricately crafted, and full of snappy dialog, vivid characters, and profound emotions. I hope we’ll see many more of them.

Following off the first full length Penric and Desdemona novel, Lois McMaster Bujold returns with Knot of Shadows, the eleventh volume in this The World of the Five Gods subseries. By reading order, this is the latest in the chronology - and though readers can jump into the series at any point, new readers may lose some of the richness of the characterization. I probably wouldn’t start here, though I do recommend the series as a whole.

Knot of Shadows is the story of Penric and Desdemona (his live-in-his-body demon) investigating a drowning victim who returned to partial life - not through CPR, mind you, just straight up dead. So there’s murder, magic, and it’s absolutely not a romp. Knot of Shadows is a thoughtful delve into some of the theology behind The World of Five Gods and how that murder occurred and what the larger implications are. It’s not cheerful, but as with everything Bujold writes - Knot of Shadows is excellent.

I love the Penric & Desdemona series, so I was delighted to read this novella. It's especially lovely to read something formatted so beautifully, like all Subterranean Press editions are. This was an intriguing little tale, short and succinct, a little grim but very enjoyable.

Demon ridden Sorcerer!

Elegant writing as ever. Penric is called to an unexpected happening. A dead body with a sundered soul trapped inside it. Penric’s investigation follows a series of events, some sad, some, like his confrontation with a downy pair of old sailors, hilarious.
But finding the body of the sundered spirit and then finding who’d been dealing in this sort of magic produces some startling insights.
My favorite demon ridden sorcerer never fails to interest.
A stunning cover accompanies this special edition hardback.

A Subterranean Press ARC via NetGalley.
Many thanks to the author and publisher.

This is a delightful series. The best part of having discovered it quite late is I got to read all eleven books in a mere year’s time. I’d recommend the series quite wholeheartedly to any fantasy fan that wants a lighter read. Grim things do happen in the books but the main characters are decent people and it all works out in the end. The pacing is good and the books are all fairly short, I find they can be read in a single sitting.

Penric is an interesting character, both a sorcerer and a Learned servant of the Bastard, the fifth god. He seems to resent intrusions on his time, but he honors a request from a medical Master to consult about a strange-looking case. What he finds is something he has never seen: a ghost has occupied a dead body and reanimated it slightly.

Penric and others are concerned about the proper disposition of souls after death; cases such as this one suggest the possibility of chaos entering the process. Penric investigates what's been happening with the help of his indwelling demon, Desdemona, and manages to find and use the right tools to help things sort themselves appropriately.

The story provides the opportunity for Pen and others to speculate about various aspects of death and what happens after it. It seems almost as if Bujold simply wanted a chance to throw some ideas around, and she created a story in which it could happen. Penric responds cleverly, and manages some sleuthing that helps make the pieces come together.

Another great story from a Master writer!! I am never disappointed when I pick up a book by Ms. Build and I wasn't this time!

At this point in the series, we've seen Penric and Desdemona through some pretty harrowing experiences, but in many ways, this was the most challenging for me as a reader. A major theme of the story is despair and the distance of the gods from mortal problems — something I think many of us struggle with, whatever our personal relationship to religion may be. The internal theology of this world is endlessly fascinating, and once again, I'm impressed by Lois McMaster Bujold's ability to write tragedy and explore unanswerable questions with delicacy and even awe. I'll be thinking about this one for a while.

My thanks to NetGalley and Subterranean Press for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

3 1/2 stars rounded down. Well-written novella with a (mostly) likeable cast of characters.

I've always been a huge fan of the author's work, so I was thrilled to receive an e-version from Subterranean Press and Netgalley. I have read every novel and novella in the Five Gods series, starting with [book:The Curse of Chalion|61886] up to this latest novella. So I am surprised and slightly bummed that this didn't merit at least four stars from me.

Like the other novellas in this series, this is a mystery wrapped up in a fantasy setting. Pen and his student travel all throughout Vilnoc to solve the mystery of the undead corpse. The dialogue is snappy and witty, the interesting world of the Five Gods is subtly explained without the dreaded info-drop, and the pacing is decent.

The character of Penric is a cheerful fellow, and Des' interaction with him is almost always amusing. There just wasn't as much of that interaction. Pen and Nikys have a great marriage, but Nikys was mostly off screen raising their children. There really wasn't character growth to speak of. I believe that is my chief complaint. My secondary issue is that this storyline is awfully similar to another in the series.

Perhaps the series has just run its course for me, I don't know. She is truly one of the better authors writing today, and I will continue to read anything she publishes despite this lackluster review.

This quick and relatively light read would appeal to most fantasy readers, but particularly to Lois McMaster Bujold's fanbase.

It's a theology focused zombie murder mystery.
I suppose I need to go read the beginning of the series now, because I'm terribly intrigued.
Tho this story didn't do much with it, what I'm most curious about is the relationships. Particularly the one the whole series revolves around: Penric and the friendly demon possessing him, Desdemona.

A video review including this book will be on my Youtube channel in the coming weeks, at https://www.youtube.com/chloefrizzle

Thanks to Netgalley and Subterranean Press for a copy of this book to review. All opinions are my own.

I’ve enjoyed the Penric and Desdemona series enormously over the past 3 weeks. I will circle back around and review the installments I have not yet reviewed in the new year. I raced through the last 6 and they certainly deserve a reread.

I think my favorite thing about the series is that it is in many ways an investigative procedural – Pen and Des investigate things and get in and out of situations without there being an over-arching antagonist or a need to save the world. Penric is a detective, but he is not concerned as much with justice as with souls. In Knot of Shadows, he and his chaos demon are investigating a death, but not to determine if there was a murder, or who the killer might be. Pen and Des want to know what has happened to the souls, and to anyone impacted by the body’s death. It’s interesting watching his and Desdemona’s process (throughout all the books), particularly after a couple of decades of watching various police procedural shows where justice is the goal.

Knot of Shadows feels a little darker than other books in the series. Not that bad things haven’t happened, but this one has stronger content notes than others. I was worried for a bit that Bujold was going somewhere very dark. It gets very sad, but not exploitatively so. I think every book I’ve read this year has grappled with grief and loss. (I think coping with out global grief.) Penric is called on to clear the wreckage of grief and to avert greater suffering. He and Desdemona stay somewhat apart from the grief happening around them, though not untouched. Thinking back to those police procedurals, Penric and Desdemona solve the mysteries they were asked to solve, but it doesn’t become so personal for them that they are emotionally compromised. They don’t take on the grief as their own. Penric remains compassionate, without making himself the star of the emotional drama. It was lovely.

CN: grief, death, possession by ghost, murder?, accidental death of a child off page, more than one self inflicted death off page, false imprisonment in past, animal death off page, handling of dead bodies, remembering an incident of self harm, greed.

I received this as an advance reader copy from Subterranean Press and NetGalley. This did not affect my opinions.

I think this was one of the best Penric stories since Mira's Last Dance -- the later installments of the series can get a bit repetitive as Penric gets into "dangers" that never really feel threatening because Desdemona will always haul him out of them, but this one is much more interested in exploring the theological underpinnings of Penric's world. It's not a happy story, and it reminds me more of The Mountains of Mourning than anything else I've read by Bujold. Some pretty serious trigger warnings for child death, suicide, and animal death.

This newest installment in the Penric and Desdemona series of novellas is a treat. I always like returning to Bujold's World of the Five Gods, where Learned Penric and his demon Des are asked to take on all sorts of issues. This time, the story is a sad one, involving denials of justice, death magic, and the death of a child. The tone is meditative and somber, and yet the mystery elements are a pleasure to read. Newcomers can probably read this without prior knowledge of the characters, but ideally readers will have read some of the previous books in the series.

This reminded me very much of "Masquerade in Lodi". Not wishing to give away pertinent plot points, but the initial trigger and victim seemed very similar. This is not a story for those looking for heaps of action. Instead, it involves a great deal of introspection, dialogue as the investigation takes place, and its essentially a mystery dressed up in a fantasy setting. Our hero Penric is a pleasant fellow, though I would have liked more involvement of his demon Des. Excellent descriptions provide a vivid mental image while pouring through the story. Overall, it was a pleasant if unexciting read. It was well-suited to a novella. Much longer and it would have been a bit much.

Penric is called to the Mother's order to examine a patient of sorts: a corpse that washed onto shore in Vilnoc but made its animated state known by making sounds inside the morgue. Penric and Des discover that the body is indeed dead but possessed by one of the sundered shades.

While Knot of Shadows is nominally a whodunnit, I think it plays an oversized important role in the World of the Five Gods series, fleshing out theological elements only alluded to in prior volumes, namely what happens when a shade inhabits a vacated body. There are some tragic elements, which make it a darker and less satisfying read than some of the other novels, but still a nice addition to the canon.

I particularly liked the small but important role Nikys plays at the end.

This isn't one of the better chapters in the Penric and Desdemona saga. It involves a complicated triple tangle of wandering souls that I couldn't figure out. One interesting idea, though, is that a soul could be so rancid that none of the Five Gods is willing to claim it. Philosophically that's interesting to think about but in a practical sense it's a bit odd. In this story the fellow with the rancid soul did bad things, but not as bad as some of the stuff we hear about every day. Penric meditates on this rancid soul but how is it that
this isn't common? There are many horrid criminals who have done worse than this greedy guy. One would expect spurned souls to be all over the place.

Another enjoyable read about Penric and Desdemona from Lois McMaster Bujold. These always have a great story, pacing, and of course characters. Can't wait for the next in this series. #KnotofShadows #NetGalley

Knot of Shadows by Lois McMaster Bujold


As I have mentioned before on the blog, I was late to the Lois McMaster Bujold party and only discovered her when she was nominated for Best Series for the Vorkosigan saga. I think it was the Baen book covers that turned me off. But I’m on board now!

She definitely deserve the best series Hugo award for the Vorkosigan Books, and also deserved it equally for the World of the Five Gods series. I have not read any of the novels in that series yet, but once I started reading the Penric and Desdemona novellas, I couldn’t stop. I was hooked instantly and binged my way through the series. Thankfully, Ms. Bujold is still writing more Penric stories.


I was thrilled to get a copy of this new Penric novella - the first and so far only new book since her novel length entry, Assassins of Thassalon. Thank you, Subterranean Press, for the eARC. As usual for a subterranean press edition, there is a new cover with gorgeous cover art. This book was a joy, like all the Penric stories are, and my only complaint is that after the recent novel, this novella felt more like a snack than a meal. It would not be the best place to start with the series, but if you’ve read any of the others before, you will really enjoy this one.

Bujold is an auto-read and an autobuy, for my personal collection and for the library's collection. This is another in her Penric and Desdemona series, combining mystery, paranormal and fantasy.

Thank you to Subterranean Press and Netgalley for an e-ARC.

This novella is the 11th addition in a series. McMaster Bujold gently (re-)introduces everyone and everything to new readers without risking boring return readers. I easily jumped right into the world of our protagonist Penric and unusual “companion” Desdemona. In addition to the main duo, we get a nice small band of supporting characters who join the investigative team.

The setting for <i>Knot of Shadows</i> is the city of Vilnoc. It has the vibes of a quaint British coastal town murder mystery—except the supernatural is involved. The fantastical elements are not magical but rather connected to this world’s religion. As the small-stakes mystery unfolds, the mood turns less quaint-cozy.

The tone of the story and delivery of the prose are a bit starchy in the tradition of classic fantasy, so I do not necessarily think that modern fantasy fans would enjoy this as much. <i>Knot of Shadows</i> definitely focuses on the plot, not character development, but that is to be expected given that the novella gives readers a slice of Penric’s life.

The story itself is solid. Although I’m sure I would have a greater understanding and enjoyment of the series had I read the entire series in order, this story and its style is just not for me.