Reviews with content warning for Sexual harassment - A Power Unbound

How can I rate a book as both dark and light-hearted? Somehow, Freya Marske pulls this off. The themes are dark, people’s lives are constantly on the line, but the banter among the seven main characters sometime made me laugh out loud.

I have to admit that the obnoxious Lord Hawthorn grabbed my interest in the first book in the series, and midway through the second book it became pretty clear that he would be the hero of this third book. But it’s the son of lower-class Italian immigrants who steals the show. Alanzo Cesare Rossi (making his way in the hidebound London world as Alan Ross) can never resist waving a red flag at a charging bull, especially when he’s up against Jack Cheetham, Lord Hawthorn. The power should be all Lord Hawthorn’s, but somehow Alan manages to win every showdown. If you like gay romantic fantasy with a good magic system and lots of spicy sex, you’ll love this book.

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displacedcactus's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

Ok, so I really liked how this book wrapped up the meta story of the trilogy. The epilogue is downright cozy, y'all. Very satisfying.

Unfortunately, to get there, we have to have Jack and Alan as our narrators, and their relationship and sex life was just not to my taste. I wouldn't have picked this up as a stand-alone or start of a series, and while I wouldn't say their sexual exploits ruined the book for me, they were just less enjoyable for me than the relationships in the previous two books.

If you enjoy a lot of power dynamics, roleplay, and SA-adjacent fantasies, you'll probably enjoy this. Like Jack and Alan are clearly having a great time and being imaginative. The dirty talk is very banter-forward and very spicy. I'll also give Marske points for coming up with a way for them to establish consent and a sort of safe word which felt natural for the characters and the time period, while still letting modern readers feel comfortable that it was all in good fun.

Even though this book wasn't my favorite, I enjoyed the trilogy as a whole enough that I'll keep an eye out for future work from Marske.

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purplepenning's review

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

I've gone back and forth on the rating for this one, but I think I'll settle in at a 4. I *loved* the first book and though I didn't enjoy the second one nearly as much when I was reading it, I think of it with fondness and positivity now. I suspect it will be the same with this one. The world remains fascinating (I would definitely read more in this setting!), the characters are captivating, the Edwardian found family vibe is pretty perfect, and the whole theme of consent as it applies personally between partners and broadly in the system of magic and political power is clever and intriguing. The relationship dynamics and humor didn't really connect for me in books two and three, though I liked the individual characters well enough. Also, "levels of steaminess" is a completely subjective measure, but I think readers may want to know that this one follows the trajectory of book two and, on my scale at least, moves from "mildly steamy, mostly sweet and swoony romantic fantasy" in book one to "kinda spicy, unapologetically kinky romantic fantasy" in book three. There's a lot of fantasy story line to wrap up, so it doesn't become ALL about Hawthorne and Ross's relationship, but it's a significant part of the story.

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