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dmrosenblatt's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Graphic: Violence, Sexual content, and Child death
Moderate: Emotional abuse
grets_reads's review
- 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
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail and Sexual content
Moderate: Violence, Cursing, Medical content, Grief, Death, Emotional abuse, Blood, and Toxic relationship
Minor: Vomit, Abandonment, Child death, Panic attacks/disorders, and Murder
ramunepocky's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Violence, Blood, Emotional abuse, and Sexual content
Moderate: Death, Medical content, and Transphobia
Minor: Child death
kylieqrada's review against another edition
- 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
3.5
Graphic: Blood, Violence, and Sexual content
Moderate: Emotional abuse, Death, and Medical content
Minor: Racism, Child death, and Transphobia
internationalreads's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Abandonment, Bullying, Child death, Medical content, Sexual content, Confinement, Death, Grief, Blood, Chronic illness, Cursing, Injury/Injury detail, Suicidal thoughts, and Toxic relationship
pvbobrien's review
- 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
Graphic: Sexual content
Moderate: Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, and Violence
Minor: Child death and Domestic abuse
booksthatburn's review against another edition
- 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
5.0
Elle's relationship with her brother Tony is loving, but strange, as she feels obligated to protect him but he is amused and exasperated at how much she contorts herself to keep him safe in a situation that she sees as her fault. Tony is a fascinating character, cheeky and irascible, he decides what he wants and goes for it - consequences be damned. I suspect he must be more prudent than how Elle sees him, or else he wouldn’t have survived this long in his suddenly mortal state, but she’s so protective and cautious that if he takes literally any risk she sees it is insensible from her very particular baseline. They're both in hiding from their younger brother who wants to kill Tony (and then probably Elle) in pursuit of a power he can only have if they're both dead.
Luc is lonely and deliberate, turning things over in his mind before making any move. He's also in a brutally uneven power, dynamic with his boss, Oberon, who has taken steps to conceal this from those around them. Early in the book, Elle asks Luc a question which he keeps turning over in his mind, using it as a way to explore the possibility of something other than the way he’s been forced to live for two centuries. Gradually he figures out that the person he's been ordered to find (and likely kill) for his job is the brother who's been trying to kill Elle and Tony. Luc is trying to make up for what he sees as a failure in his past, some thing that was actually less terrible than what everyone else has assumed, but a geas on him stops him from correcting the record, and potentially relieving some of the scorn and fear that others hold for him.
Oberon, Luc's boss, is exploitative, intense, ruthless, and terrible. Long before it’s specifically clear what kind of a hold he has on Luc, he’s casually racist, more than a bit sexist, and dismissive of a particular character's gender identity as part of that sexism. I don’t think that “and also he misgenders people" is necessary in order to mark him or anyone else out as a villain, but the way that it’s done here quickly differentiates him as a nasty character. It also serves to set him apart from his employees who are just hired muscle who sometimes kill people. Where for them it’s a job and a skill, for him it’s an obsession, and extension of his obvious need for power and control. Through whatever combination of power and privilege, he’s gotten to the point where he literally doesn’t have to give a shit about what anyone else thinks, and he wields that knowledge to make Luc's life a living hell as a side effect of his seeming need for control and obedience. Oberon's cruelty is casual, systemic, and occasionally specific.
I like the wrecking crew (a particular group of Luc's colleagues). Part of their early antipathy towards Luc is from thinking that he did a terrible thing which crosses a line for them. The ways in which that story is more complicated are gradually untangled in the narrative, but it speaks well for them that what they think he did would cross lines that are not to be crossed.
I’ve enjoyed this audiobook narrator’s work previously, and this was up to their usual excellent standards. The range of voices is nice and the performance was engaging and easy to follow. The worldbuilding unfolds naturally along with the story, aided by the oscillation between Elle and Luc. Their different backgrounds provide different experiences and occasionally different ways of looking at the exact same bit of the story. I like the context-sensitive approach to a kind of "all the spirits/creatures are real" style of worldbuilding. All the living supernatural entities have an item which connects their powers to their bodies, but other than that they have existences and magical parameters consistent with their cultures of origin. Luc has a true name and can be affected by misuse of it because he's a European-style half-elf. Elle is the descendent of a Chinese medicine god and she often works her magic through calligraphy to create charms. Elle's friend and coworker is a helpful (mostly background) presence, suggesting the shape of a long-term bond without distracting from the current crisis and main storyline. She's also a ghost, providing opportunities to explore a few more aspects of how magic works which are specific to her.
Read BITTER MEDICINE for a fantasy romance about building a better life together, and figuring out how to hold on to what actually matters in the face of seemingly unbeatable obstacles.
Graphic: Medical content, Sexual content, Blood, Violence, Emotional abuse, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Toxic relationship, Physical abuse, Alcohol, Racism, Gun violence, Death of parent, and Death
Minor: Child death
CW for misgendering, disassociation, intrusive thoughts (minor).takarakei's review against another edition
- 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
- Fantasy Romance
- Urban/Contemporary: Raleigh, NYC, Paris, San Fran
- Dual POV (single narrator on audio, but tbh it is very well done)
- Elle
- Chinese descendent of the god of medicine
- Calligraphy/jade magic
- Living a secret life with her brother because of family drama
- Luc
- Half elf, half French/German more specifically he speaks French and Alsatian
- Secret agent (unknowingly) tracking down Elle's brother
- HE COOKS
- Elle
I'm literally not going to shut up about this book til more people read it!
3/5 (was not expecting the spice, but it was so good!)
Graphic: Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, and Sexual content
Moderate: Medical content, Death, and Emotional abuse
Minor: Racism, Child death, Death of parent, and Transphobia
Elle has pretty shitty parents who are manipulative. Luc's boss is the worst (no boundaries, runs him into the ground) and is just not a good person.bookwormbullet's review
- 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
Graphic: Sexual content and Violence
Moderate: Physical abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, and Torture
Minor: Death of parent and Child death
lastblossom's review
- 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
tl;dr
Romance sits front and center in this urban fantasy with two smart and likable adult leads.
About
Elle is a low-level employee at Roland & Riddle, making simple magical glyphs for members of the agency. Luc is the agency's top security expert, favored by Oberon himself. When Luc starts coming to Elle for glyphs for his mission, feelings blossom on both sides. But both sides also carry a lot of secrets - Elle's hiding the true extent of her power, and Luc's still living with the fallout of an old assignment gone wrong. There's also the small matter of Elle's murderous younger brother, and Luc's latest assignment to hunt him down...
Thoughts
Congratulations to fans of pining, this one's for you. The pining is incredibly strong here, with both characters quietly and powerfully into each other before the first page, and a lot of longing thoughts even after their mid-book hookup. I typically read fantasy books with romance in them, but this is most certainly a romance book with fantasy in it. Our lead couple's relationship is firmly fixed as the focus of the book, which is a surprising thing to say about a piece that also includes family drama amongst descendants of gods, and a fight against the fae king Oberon. And yet, it works. In some ways, it feels as if we're getting a slice of insight into our two leads - all the things that mattered before do not matter quite so much in the presence of a loved one.
Elle's arc learning to love herself first before she allows herself to love Luc was incredibly painful in a very real and relatable way (I was not expecting to feel so attacked by this book, but here we are). I love that she's already extremely smart and capable, and she knows it. I also love that a plot twist in the middle could have turned into my least favorite trope - bad communication - and Elle navigated it incredibly well and made no assumptions. I genuinely cheered.
Luc is a likable lead as well, although we get significantly less insight into his story. The narration did a good job of highlighting who he is at work vs who he is with Elle, and his own struggle with who he wants to be always. Also, I will never not be excited about an elf who also cooks.
I think my only "complaint" about the book is that it's written in third person present tense, which is for some reason really hard for me to get into. It took a couple false starts from me before I could actually finish this, but I'm glad I did.
Graphic: Sexual content
Moderate: Grief, Emotional abuse, and Death
Minor: Child death and Racism