Magdalen must finally honor her oath to the Renunciates and spend six months in seclusion in the Amazon house in Thendara. It is a time for her to learn what it means to be a Renunciate, a time when her loyalty to her oath is tested, and a time to discover who she really is, what she wants, who she loves. Meanwhile, Jaelle becomes the freemate to Magda's ex-husband and offers to take her place at the Terran base. Both women live parallel lives of culture shock, questioning their choices, and blossoming laran. When the man that Jaelle has been made responsible for chooses to search for a missing Terran on his own, a pregnant Jaelle follows him into a storm. Realizing the other woman's danger through her awakened laran, Magda follows, and the resulting events change both women forever.
Impression: While I don't dislikeThendara House, it wasn't as interesting as most the other novels in the Darkover series. For much of the novel there wasn't much really happening except watching the two women grapple with culture shock and being miserable over their circumstances. It isn’t really until the man Jaelle is supposed to be training takes of on his own that things get interesting, and the events that occur because of that are too brief. My impression was that this novel was mostly to help set up circumstances for the next novel (and possibly other novels that would occur after this one in the Darkover timeline). While this can be useful, even necessary, I think any book with that as a purpose still needs more of a plot arch than this one seemed to have.
