Cover of When Voiha Wakes

When Voiha Wakes

core novel 1983 The Vandarei Trilogy

Record

First published1983
Original language EN
Work typenovel
Canon statuscore
Reader rating3.44 (101 ratings, collected 2026-08-26)
Page count160
First-edition ISBN9780553236477

Synopsis

The third and final novel in Joy Chant's Vandarei sequence tells of a forbidden romance with consequences reaching far beyond the two lovers at its center, between a woman destined to become queen and the young man who steals her heart through music no one expected him to play. Rahike holds the position of Young Mistress within Naramethe, a matriarchal society in which women govern public life while men are largely confined to leisure and domestic pursuits, a structure she has never had reason to question. Her feelings for Mairilek, a gifted potter who breaks deep social taboo by performing music traditionally forbidden to men, upend that certainty, and his playing proves to carry far more power than either of them anticipated, stirring the influence of ancient, long-dormant gods upon the world around them.

Where it sits

Notes

  • From the series record (The Vandarei Trilogy): Three linked novels set in the secondary world of Vandarei/Kendrath; the first follows three English children pulled into the world, the latter two are set generations earlier and later in the same world with different casts.

Neighbouring works

Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.

Sources

← The Vandarei Trilogy dossier · All universes

Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.