Anne Bishop’s Black Jewels series is set in a world filled with magical things—talking dogs, jewels that grant power, ghosts who walk among the living at night, and many humanoid characters who can fly. But the focus of The Queen’s Bargain (which is set in that world but can be read as a standalone) is not on such delightful worldbuilding—it’s on the interpersonal relationships and challenges of two powerful families within that world. Their society has a double caste system; the expectations, privileges, and responsibilities one has depend not only on how aristocratic one’s birth is, but also how dark one’s Jewels are (which corresponds to how magically powerful one is, though training is required to use one’s power). There’s a large amount of overlap between darker Jewels and higher social rank, but within an aristocratic family there can be a large variation in how dark each member’s Jewels are.
