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amy_in_the_city's review
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I'll admit I struggled a bit to get into this book for the first 100 pages or so, but once I was in, I was IN. The main couple had me kicking my feet rooting for them. I loved all the characters in this book and thought they were wonderfully developed. They could have made Tadek a villain or dreadfully boring, as the romance genre tends to do with exes, but they made him so fun while still giving him depth and complexity. I like his friendship with Kadou, and I can't wait to read his book! I want to be Commander Eozena when I grow up, and Zeliha was an awesome badass ruler.
The romance in this was such a delicious, angsty, slow burn. Evemer was so stoic and reserved, which made it all the more fun to see him fall so hard for Kadou. I appreciated the anxiety representation with Kadou and that it didn't make him any less of a badass. He still defended Evemer whenever needed, and I loved seeing a prince also defend his bodyguard. A big theme in their relationship is reciprocity, and I love when couples feel like a real partnership.
There was enough action to keep the plot fun and exciting, but I do wish the villain wasn't so obvious from the start. Also, while this was a fantasy, the fantasy elements are used very sparingly. The ending felt a little bit rushed, and I do wish we got to see a bit more of Kadou and Evemer together as a happy couple. My overwhelming love for the romance and the characters overrides any of these quibbles though, and I know this is a book I'll come back to for rereads.
The romance in this was such a delicious, angsty, slow burn. Evemer was so stoic and reserved, which made it all the more fun to see him fall so hard for Kadou. I appreciated the anxiety representation with Kadou and that it didn't make him any less of a badass. He still defended Evemer whenever needed, and I loved seeing a prince also defend his bodyguard. A big theme in their relationship is reciprocity, and I love when couples feel like a real partnership.
There was enough action to keep the plot fun and exciting, but I do wish the villain wasn't so obvious from the start. Also, while this was a fantasy, the fantasy elements are used very sparingly. The ending felt a little bit rushed, and I do wish we got to see a bit more of Kadou and Evemer together as a happy couple. My overwhelming love for the romance and the characters overrides any of these quibbles though, and I know this is a book I'll come back to for rereads.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Blood, Alcohol, Mental illness, and Violence
Moderate: Sexual content, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, and Gore
Minor: Pregnancy, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Classism, and Death of parent
miraileah's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
5.0. I loved this book, both the physical and audiobook reading experiences were immaculate. The characterization of both main and side characters was excellent, the world building was great, and the plot was interesting and well paced alongside the romantic development. I also loved the depiction of chronic anxiety in the book, it made me feel very understood, and made me desperately want to give Kadou an SSRI.
The characters, both our main romantic duo and side characters, were well fleshed out and came to life on the page. I started the book strongly disliking a character who I really enjoyed by the end of the book. Loved the magic system of touch tasting, what a unique and interesting idea! Also, the nods to the Ottoman inspired world was awesome to read. Finally a fantasy set in something other than Fantasy England! And finally, the mystery plot was a ton of fun. I thought the book was a good length to settle the mystery, feel the stakes get higher and higher, and of course see our main characters come to terms with their feelings.
I think that a comparison to Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell is really fair (though both have very unique worlds and different themes). They both have forced proximity love m/m love stories with one character being a prince, queer normative worlds, and fun mystery plotlines. The moral of the story is that this is exactly what romantasy should be like, and Alexandra Rowland is a new auto-buy author for me.
The characters, both our main romantic duo and side characters, were well fleshed out and came to life on the page. I started the book strongly disliking a character who I really enjoyed by the end of the book. Loved the magic system of touch tasting, what a unique and interesting idea! Also, the nods to the Ottoman inspired world was awesome to read. Finally a fantasy set in something other than Fantasy England! And finally, the mystery plot was a ton of fun. I thought the book was a good length to settle the mystery, feel the stakes get higher and higher, and of course see our main characters come to terms with their feelings.
I think that a comparison to Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell is really fair (though both have very unique worlds and different themes). They both have forced proximity love m/m love stories with one character being a prince, queer normative worlds, and fun mystery plotlines. The moral of the story is that this is exactly what romantasy should be like, and Alexandra Rowland is a new auto-buy author for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders and Sexual content
Moderate: Violence and Pregnancy
cinnamonandpancakes's review
adventurous
emotional
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
I am unsure if this book would rate higher if I'd read it as a physical book. I kept picking it up and putting it down, which I don't think helped. This book needs to be read all in one go.
I loved Kadou and Evemer, especially Evemer, and their romance. It was very sexy and compelling. And Tadek was a lot of fun. But I found a lot of the other characters less interesting. Siranos, in particular, seemed to change personality depending on what the narrative needed him to be and that made his plotline quite unsatisfying in my opinion.
The world building was amazing, however, and I loved the focus on material culture. It felt very much like a world that people lived in.
I loved Kadou and Evemer, especially Evemer, and their romance. It was very sexy and compelling. And Tadek was a lot of fun. But I found a lot of the other characters less interesting. Siranos, in particular, seemed to change personality depending on what the narrative needed him to be and that made his plotline quite unsatisfying in my opinion.
The world building was amazing, however, and I loved the focus on material culture. It felt very much like a world that people lived in.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Kidnapping, Panic attacks/disorders, Violence, Mental illness, Alcohol, and Drug use
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Death of parent, and Death
heather667's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Classism, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Violence, Blood, Bullying, Injury/Injury detail, Ableism, and Kidnapping
Moderate: Death
Minor: Acephobia/Arophobia
amarreth's review
adventurous
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence and Mental illness
Moderate: Sexual content and Xenophobia
eidal's review
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders, Mental illness, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Kidnapping and Violence
Minor: Alcohol and Pregnancy
keresian's review
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Okay listen - LISTEN. I stayed up til 2am to finish this. I was hooked. There's so much simmering behind the scenes with world building. The plot is phenomenal. The brilliant way Rowland has woven in gender and sexuality, love and familial bond. I love this book and this world - this is a tough one to beat for favourite of the year.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders
Moderate: Blood, Alcoholism, Alcohol, and Drug use
Minor: Violence, Sexual content, and Death of parent
nicjmorrow's review
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
This is a beautiful fantasy story with a cool magic that is mundane to the world, a complex political backing that makes the world so real, and a slow burn romance that will make you rip through a long book like it's nothing. The only thing that would have made this book better is Kadou telling his sister in the end <3 honestly a fav book of this year.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence
Moderate: Sexual content
vanillatwilights's review
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders and Mental illness
Moderate: Kidnapping
Minor: Violence and Murder
wardenred's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
A man could be good, but a prince? A prince could only be good enough. He could, if he tried his utmost, meet expectations. But they were far, far too high for anyone to be able to exceed them.
Well, this was an interesting experience! I really, really loved the romance and the two leads' character arcs. These parts of the books were handled absolutely beautifully. The slow burn? The gradual growth fueled by all the realizations? The way Kadou and Evemer just worked together? The themes of fealty? The way Kadou's anxiety was handled? Evemers entire personality? Aspects of so many of my favorite tropes woven together into one glorious tapestry, from enemies to lovers to bodyguard romance to fake dating? Perfection, really. In terms of all this, the book hit all of my buttons.
Everything around the romance, though... The more I read on and the closer I looked at the other aspects of the novel, the more weirdly artificial everything around the two main characters looked. On the surface, the Ottoman-inspired setting was brimming with detail, from infodumps about currency to the smaller stuff like all the descriptions of food and clothes. But somehow, most of it felt like digging deeper would reveal a glaring void rather than a larger iceberg. And hey, you know what, that is often indeed the case with SFF novels that aren't *about* worldbuilding! Half the magic of writing sometimes is about arranging the stuff you have in a way that makes readers feel that it goes so much deeper than it does. But here, those tricks just felt strangely obvious. Like almost everything about the setting mattered inasmuch as it affected the main characters and their budding relationship.
There were two aspects of the worldbuilding that I found genuinely interesting and thought-provoking. One, in a good way: the way inheritance works, the whole deal with body-fathers, how female rulers don't need to marry because everyone already understands their children are their own/belong to the dynasty, whereas male rulers have to marry to have the legal claim as fathers. This here is a lot of cool stuff. The other aspect, I'm more on the fence about, although I appreciate it: the active inclusion of nonbinary characters, or rather, the way it was handled. On one hand, it was incredibly cool that there were so many, that society is fully accepting of nonbinary characters, that there's an accepted third set of pronouns, etc! I love this! On the other hand, as a nonbinary person I disliked how all of them were basically shoved into the same category. There are men, women, and there's a third gender. Here are three boxes to sort yourselves into instead of two. Um. Call. What if someone doesn't fit into any of the boxes regardless? What about genderfluid people? It's inclusive on one hand, and constraining on another in a way I feel the treatment of nonbinary identities just shouldn't be. Idk. I'd rather stand under an umbrella than live in a box, personally.
Then there's the external plot, and, my. That's the whole reason this could never be more than a four-star read read for me. It was just so utterly shallow and at times silly! Even more so than with the worldbuilding, every bit of it glaringly, obviously, starkly existed to allow for hitting the romance plot beats at the right times. The villain might as well have been walking around with a big neon sign, "HELLO I'M THE BAD GUY," and the fact it took hundreds of pages to uncover the whole mystery/conspiracy says nothing good about plenty of the characters. In fact, it completely ruins the initially strong characterization of the female characters—Zeliha and Eozena—which is a damn shame. With Zeliha in particular, it's just so frustrating. She initially looked like a strong, capable, complex woman juggling a lot of important threads, but apparently, she just needed to listen more to her younger brother early on and the fact she didn't paints her in a rather strange light at the end. I kept waiting for some twist to occur and prove to me that the "big neon sign" was in a fact a red herring, but noooo.
The romance, though. The romance and its development. That sure deserves all the stars, just as the deep delves into both leads' inner worlds (I come from fanfic, okay, I'm a sucker for 500-pages character studies) and Rowland's amazing prose. So all in all, I liked the time I spent with the book—and picking apart all of its element to see the purpose of each was fun and educating in its own way!
Well, this was an interesting experience! I really, really loved the romance and the two leads' character arcs. These parts of the books were handled absolutely beautifully. The slow burn? The gradual growth fueled by all the realizations? The way Kadou and Evemer just worked together? The themes of fealty? The way Kadou's anxiety was handled? Evemers entire personality? Aspects of so many of my favorite tropes woven together into one glorious tapestry, from enemies to lovers to bodyguard romance to fake dating? Perfection, really. In terms of all this, the book hit all of my buttons.
Everything around the romance, though... The more I read on and the closer I looked at the other aspects of the novel, the more weirdly artificial everything around the two main characters looked. On the surface, the Ottoman-inspired setting was brimming with detail, from infodumps about currency to the smaller stuff like all the descriptions of food and clothes. But somehow, most of it felt like digging deeper would reveal a glaring void rather than a larger iceberg. And hey, you know what, that is often indeed the case with SFF novels that aren't *about* worldbuilding! Half the magic of writing sometimes is about arranging the stuff you have in a way that makes readers feel that it goes so much deeper than it does. But here, those tricks just felt strangely obvious. Like almost everything about the setting mattered inasmuch as it affected the main characters and their budding relationship.
There were two aspects of the worldbuilding that I found genuinely interesting and thought-provoking. One, in a good way: the way inheritance works, the whole deal with body-fathers, how female rulers don't need to marry because everyone already understands their children are their own/belong to the dynasty, whereas male rulers have to marry to have the legal claim as fathers. This here is a lot of cool stuff. The other aspect, I'm more on the fence about, although I appreciate it: the active inclusion of nonbinary characters, or rather, the way it was handled. On one hand, it was incredibly cool that there were so many, that society is fully accepting of nonbinary characters, that there's an accepted third set of pronouns, etc! I love this! On the other hand, as a nonbinary person I disliked how all of them were basically shoved into the same category. There are men, women, and there's a third gender. Here are three boxes to sort yourselves into instead of two. Um. Call. What if someone doesn't fit into any of the boxes regardless? What about genderfluid people? It's inclusive on one hand, and constraining on another in a way I feel the treatment of nonbinary identities just shouldn't be. Idk. I'd rather stand under an umbrella than live in a box, personally.
Then there's the external plot, and, my. That's the whole reason this could never be more than a four-star read read for me. It was just so utterly shallow and at times silly! Even more so than with the worldbuilding, every bit of it glaringly, obviously, starkly existed to allow for hitting the romance plot beats at the right times. The villain might as well have been walking around with a big neon sign, "HELLO I'M THE BAD GUY," and the fact it took hundreds of pages to uncover the whole mystery/conspiracy says nothing good about plenty of the characters. In fact, it completely ruins the initially strong characterization of the female characters—Zeliha and Eozena—which is a damn shame. With Zeliha in particular, it's just so frustrating. She initially looked like a strong, capable, complex woman juggling a lot of important threads, but apparently, she just needed to listen more to her younger brother early on and the fact she didn't paints her in a rather strange light at the end. I kept waiting for some twist to occur and prove to me that the "big neon sign" was in a fact a red herring, but noooo.
The romance, though. The romance and its development. That sure deserves all the stars, just as the deep delves into both leads' inner worlds (I come from fanfic, okay, I'm a sucker for 500-pages character studies) and Rowland's amazing prose. So all in all, I liked the time I spent with the book—and picking apart all of its element to see the purpose of each was fun and educating in its own way!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders
Moderate: Confinement and Violence