Katharine Kerr’s tales of Deverry: An engrossing series as masterfully woven as the Celtic knots that inspired its twisting timelines

What’s the plot?

Centuries ago, young prince/trainee sorcerer Nevyn makes a huge mistake that leads to the deaths of three people he loves - and after a rash vow to the gods to not rest until he sets things right, the now-immortal Nevyn reunites with their reincarnations every generation as he slowly struggles to complete his vow.

Where’s it from? 

Kerr is an American author, though Deverry is a very Welsh world.
The original ‘Act’ of four books began in 1986 and wrapped up nicely in 1990, but additional stories have kept on coming, with the 16th book published in 2020.

Three words: Intricate, believable, alive
Re-readable? Absolutely - it might just take you a while

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Christmas holidays are almost here, which means it must be time for a post about Katharine Kerr. My memories of the Deverry books will always be associated with the sandy beach days and hot summer nights that I first encountered her world of destiny and danger, forests and fortresses, honour and betrayal, spirits and sylphs.

My mum and dad have been into Deverry since forever, and all through my childhood their bedside tables were decorated with the latest book in the series, always with funky cover art of some shirtless sword-toting warrior or a mystical elf in swathes of jewels (and don't forget the dragons swooping past in the background). But of course, you shouldn’t judge Deverry by its pulpy fantasy covers. When I finally sat down to try the first book, Daggerspell, I was immersed in an intricately-plotted adventure that soon earned itself a place on the top of my bookshelf alongside my all-time favourites.

I don’t usually seek out high fantasy novels, but it’s not the swords and sorcery that make Deverry compelling - it’s the fantastic writing style. 

 

In good old Earthsea fashion, Katharine Kerr skilfully sets up the kingdom of Deverry, starting with a rainy inn yard in an isolated village and slowly revealing to us the wider world and neighbouring lands. The culture draws heavily on ancient Welsh myths and history, from the woollen brigga people wear to the hierarchies of the ruling system and their pagan religious practices; there’s even a pronunciation guide in the front of the books to help you know what Rhodry and Cwm Pecl and Eldidd are supposed to sound like. And it has maps, of course, as all good fantasies must.

Deverry’s magic system - dweomer - is excellently described, giving sensitive characters cold touches of premonition at vital moments, and greater powers to those who dedicate their lives to its study. Most people in Deverry don't believe in such things, but through dweomer-master Nevyn we’re introduced to a world of elemental forces, risky transformations, and cheeky gnomes - not to mention the all-important concept of one’s wyrd, the fates that are up to us to embrace or deny.

And despite the New Age-y astral projection vibes, Deverry is always firmly rooted in reality: The far-off dust plumes of pursuing riders on a country road; orange circles on a shirt where chain mail has rusted; clouds glowing like pennants in a sunset sky. 

The web of relationships between the characters are another major highlight that gives the series so much life, making them seem real when the plot could easily paint them as legendary figures. Parents and children, old friends, new lovers, uneasy allies and more shine in all their messy, ever-evolving complexity. 

The drama builds all through the first arc - Jill and her beloved berserker prince Rhodry go from fending off bandits to taking on the master of the dark dweomer in his far-flung island hideaway, giving up everything to follow their wyrds. Eloquent elf minstrel Salamander makes a fun sidekick, flaunting his dweomer powers in the guise of ‘magic’ shows, and a main character goes missing for almost half the third book with not even the reader let in on their whereabouts (only to show up later with amnesia!), which is always suspenseful.

Like most of my favourite books, Deverry combines magic and mystery with romance and sword fights, its action encompassing slick tavern brawls and horseback battles alike. Most importantly, it comes with a great dose of humour - and fun swearing. 

“By the black hairy ass of the Lord of Hell!”

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So what can you expect in Daggerspell? Quite a lot, actually - jealous brothers, exiles, elf archers, family secrets, traitor lords, love triangles, dead parents, magic daggers ... But although Deverry features a ton of recognisable genre tropes (Kerr started writing after getting into fantasy games in the ‘70s), the heart of the series is its reincarnation theme. 

Each book’s main plot revolves around a set of characters in the present, and dives into multiple flashback sections along the way of those same characters in their previous lives. 

Not only does this show how actions in the past ripple through time and influence characters beyond their deaths, but it’s a clever way of retelling the same story over and over in infinitely varied ways.

The protagonist of the main storyline, Jill, is the daughter of a silver dagger (a man who fights for pay rather than for a lord and for honour), and soon takes up a silver dagger life herself. In her past incarnations we see her as a powerless noblewoman, a bard’s wife, a warrior priestess, and even a man in a warband, as time and again she strives for more control over her life. Meanwhile, the men around her vie for her affections, while the immortal sorcerer Nevyn looks on, the only one who remembers the cycles of incarnations that have gone before.

Will Jill’s competing admirers ever find a non-violent end to their pursuit of her? Will she ever accept her innate talents and become the sorcerer she was always meant to be?

These themes are reflected in the structure of the books too, with past lives flowing in and out of the main story - some flashbacks weave between several books before they're tied up. There are no chapters in the Deverry books, only parts, each one introduced by an old saying or an in-world quote from a sorcerer's teachings. This unbroken format gives a good sense of the flow of time, and definitely encourages serious reading sessions - a lot of the time you just have to put your bookmark down wherever there's a nice section break.

The time-jumping nature of the narrative also works well for showing how the world changes, from the 7th-century dun where royals shiver in stone halls to the 11th-century ladies’ chambers decked out with real glass windows and exotic carpets. There’s a lot of political intrigue in the series, too, which is done very well - the latest book is almost entirely talking and scheming, and somehow it’s a page-turner still.

If there is a downside to jumping into Deverry, it probably is its length and the divided nature of the flashback subplots. 

Although I love to go back to certain sections of the novels, I’m yet to fully reread them because of how complicated some of the plotlines get. There’s one cool flashback involving a boy who gets set up to be a prophesied king with the help of Nevyn and his dweomer buddies (very Dune), and another where a warrior left for dead pretends to be his own ghost as part of a revenge plot, but I can’t quite remember which of the many books they’ve been split across.

By the end of the main arc, the story also slows down a lot; it’s neat to see more of the world, like the fae realm and elf society, and to see what the characters get up to as they get older (and into their next incarnations), but on the other hand it gets a bit rough when the kingdom is beset by yet another threat. As Mr Incredible says, “Sometimes I just want it to stay saved, you know?”

Around the seventh installation, there’s a siege that drags on over multiple books, and after that saga was concluded in the 11th one I’ve taken a well-deserved break from Deverry. Sixteen books is a big commitment! I have read the latest one, however, which is set centuries after the 15th book and sort of reboots the series - it was really interesting to see how the world grows into its Renaissance era, and it’s a good standalone too.

 

If you’re the kind of reader who likes their endings (happy or otherwise) to stay as they are, then I might recommend stopping after the fourth book, Dragonspell, which concludes the first (dare I say best) arc. I was devastated by the ending and didn't agree with it at first, but after letting it simmer in my brain I understood why things had to happen the way they did, and appreciate it all the more.

But if you want to know whether the 15th book is worth it, well ... you'll have to ask my mum and dad.

“If you write in the sand with a stick, soon the waves and wind will wash away the words. Such are the mistakes of ordinary men. If you cut words into stone, they remain forever. A man who claims the dweomer becomes a chisel. All his misdeeds are graved into the very flank of time itself.” So does Deverry deserves to be graved into the hearts of all true fantasy fans.