February's recommendation: Kushiel's Dart, by Jacqueline Carey.
Note: At the time of the recommendation, I hadn't yet read either of the sequels, Kushiel's Chosen and Kushiel's Avatar. Having done so since then, I can say that I recommend the entire trilogy wholeheartedly.
Imagine, if you can, a Europe where, because of an odd twist in the story of Christ, Christianity has not spread very far. Christians -- Yeshuites -- fill much the same role that Jews did, in our history. The British Isles and the Germanic lands are still pagan. And France . . . France follows a religion sprung from that twist in Christianity, a religion which takes God to task for failing to love, and which glorifies prostitution as a sacred act.
In this setting you have a protagonist who, as you might expect, is a prostitute, a Servant of Naamah. Moreover, she's a born masochist, what they call an anguissette. She's marked by Kushiel's Dart, and because of that she not only finds pleasure in pain, she craves it.
Got all that? At this point you have a recipe for, at best, soft-core porn.
Now drop in enough political intrigue to fill three books this size.
Kushiel's Dart would be a good book from any author; as a first novel, it's pretty stunning. Not only does it have an intricate plot and characterization good enough to make me feel ill at some of the emotionally unhealthy relationships these people end up in, it's got fairly impressive worldbuilding. This is a Europe which is not Europe; all the names are ancient echoes of what we know today. Ireland is Eire, Britain Alba, Spain Aragonia, the Germanic lands Skaldia, Italy Caerdicca Unitas, a fading echo of Tiberium's fabled glory. In the East you have Khebbel-im-Akkad, its people Akkadians. France itself is Terre d'Ange, the people d'Angelines, an echo that is far from accidental; the natives of that land are descended from seven angels who repudiated God and made their way among mortals. There are more gorgeous people in this book than you can shake a stick at. And Carey has done her research; at one point, when the action shifts to Skaldia, she drags out the holmgang -- which is to say, the hólmganga, the "island-going," the ritual duel of Scandinavian society.
But it's not all research turned into fiction; there's plenty of her own invention in here, too. For example, the religion of the Blessed Elua, the son born of the blood of Yeshua (Christ) and the tears of the Magdalene, risen up out of Mother Earth. His angelic followers have cults of their own, which add variety to d'Angeline life; Naamah I have mentioned already, as the female angel who lay down with strangers in the marketplace to earn coin with which to feed the Blessed Elua. Cassiel is probably the next well-developed, mainly through the Cassiline Brotherhood; he was the Perfect Companion, and his followers, who are sworn to protect and serve, are seriously badass. Kushiel gets surprisingly little screen time, as it were, but that may in part be because this is only the first book of what I believe will be a trilogy; the second book I have not read yet, and the third is coming out this spring. At any rate, given that Phèdre (the protagonist) is sworn to Naamah but marked by Kushiel from birth, Carey may be deliberately taking her time in developing Kushiel; certainly Phèdre does not understand everything about him yet.
Lest people be turned away by the thought of reading yet another Big Fat Fantasy Trilogy, Kushiel's Dart stands fairly well on its own. The immediate political situation is resolved, and while the end of the book clearly highlights a few dangling threads, it ends satisfyingly enough that you don't have to go on with the next books. I intend to, of course; I wouldn't recommend this if I didn't enjoy it, and I'm not likely to stop reading something I enjoy. So I pass this on to you, Gentle Reader. Pick it up, give it a shot. The very beginning confused me -- it throws around terms like Servant of Naamah and marque and Dowayne and House canon without much clarifying them, and there is no glossary -- but the confusion cleared up fast.
My recommendation to you.