Gods of Jade and Shadow (Silvia Moreno-Garcia)

Gods of Jade and Shadow
Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Del Rey
Fiction, Fantasy/Historical Fiction
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: If stars have any influence over a person's life, Casiopea Tun was born under the blackest, unluckiest star of all. Her mother's family disliked her even before she was born, daughter of a dark native Indian man instead of a proper light-skinned and wealthy man, and not a day goes by when her grandfather, aunts, uncles, and cousins let her forget her ignoble origins. She's little more than a servant in the wealthy family home, the most prominent in their southern Mexico village, far from the bright lights and fast music and scandalous fashions of the Jazz Age sweeping the globe. Much as she chafes, her mother keeps reminding her that wealth does not make one good or happy. Besides, her cruel grandfather has promised them one thousand pesos each on his passing - which must surely be any day now, at his age. So she keeps quiet (mostly) as she does chores (begrudgingly), tucking her dreams away for a nebulous future that will never be... until her cruelest cousin, Martin, tells her the old man's promise is so much smoke, that there is no money and never will be, and as soon as the old man passes she and her mother will serve him and his horrible whims instead.
Perhaps that's why she succumbed to temptation the day she was left all alone in the house and found the key to her grandfather's locked wooden chest. Or perhaps it was her unlucky star again, or the forces of fate. Within, she finds no treasure, no secret, but a pile of bones... a pile that, before her eyes, reconstitutes itself into the figure of a man... or, rather, a god.
Many years ago, the Mayan god of death, Hun-Kame, was betrayed by his jealous twin brother, Vucub-Kame, who had a different vision for their fading realm of Xibalba, a vision that involves a return to the old ways of war and blood sacrifices across the land. Having released his bones from their prison, Casiopea's fate becomes inextricably tied with his: the god of death cannot walk the mortal world for long, so every moment he is here he draws life essence from her. Unless he finds his missing parts - an eye, an ear, a finger, and his jade necklace of power - both of them will perish, possibly in a matter of days. But his brother soon learns of his escape, and isn't about to give up his stolen throne or his dark plans...

REVIEW: Gods of Jade and Shadow draws on Mexican and Mayan roots, grounded firmly in both the post-revolutionary 1920's country and the ancient mythology to create a modern (or near-modern) fairy tale with a decidedly non-European flavor. Casiopea is stubborn and somewhat embittered by a hard and thankless life, still mourning a father nobody save her mother seems to miss (and sometimes she questions whether her mom regrets her choice of husband, given how low it brought them upon the man's death, living as servants to her own moneyed family), clinging to her secret dreams even as part of her seems to suspect they'll never be more than that. In Hun-Kame's company, she finds herself whisked off on an adventure literally out of legend and story: their first stop is to meet a demon for information on the whereabouts of the god's missing ear. Even as she understands the gravity and danger, she can't help enjoying what little taste of freedom the quest gives her, for all that the risks are very real, for herself and Hun-Kame and the whole of Mexico and beyond should Vucub-Kame succeed. As for the god, he starts aloof and hard as stone, befitting his immortal nature as something more like an archetype or concept (the gods here know themselves to be shaped by mortal minds, and subject to fates beyond their control), but his time on Earth and his bond with Casiopea bring him closer and closer to mortality in more ways than he anticipated. Meanwhile, Vucub-Kame recruits brash, arrogant Martin as his own mortal agent. The tale wends through various odd encounters and odder characters, always with a certain fairy tale sheen that lends everything a larger than life aspect, before reaching a somewhat bittersweet conclusion. Sometimes the narrative felt a bit distance, holding the characters and situations at arm's length, and once in a while things moved by unexplained rules I probably would've understood more had I been more intimately familiar with Mayan culture and worldviews, but all in all it was a refreshingly different tale, a glimpse at a different mindset and part of the world than I normally see.

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