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A review by kaje_harper
Prosperity by Alexis Hall
5.0
4.95 stars. It should be said up front, this is not a romance. It is an imaginative steampunk AU fantasy with a gay main character, and an array of LGBTQ secondary characters. There is romance, but not in a happy-ending for the MC way. Love may come as the series progresses, but don't expect even a HFN yet.
This is a wonderful, unique story with a narrator who is appealing, fun, bright but uneducated, and whose backstory makes you ache for him even as you have to admire his spirit. Picadilly is a young gay guttersnipe with a flair for cards, an exploited past, and a willingness to court trouble. When he encounters Milord, a dangerous figure from the stews of the city below, the smart thing would have been to keep his distance. Instead, Picadilly cheats him at cards, setting in motion a chain of events that will lead him to a sexy tormented ex-clergyman with a heart of gold (and the body of a college boxer), a skyship captain of brilliant and shy ambiguity, and a lesbian navigator who sees visions of Kraken.
Some people have had problems with the dialect of the narrator - if you read Regency romances, you should have little trouble with it, related as it is to the slang and thieves' cant that peppers many of those books. (I thank Georgette Heyer for my familiarity with many of the phrases.) If that's not familiar, check a sample. The beginning is a thick as it ever gets. I personally found it smooth and easy reading.
The story has a fast-moving plot and the people in it have relationships of many kinds, equally presented without judgment. The characters are all flawed, and all fascinating. The world-building is satisfying, but not intrusive.
The only reason that I take off 0,05 stars is that I really, really hate narrators who tell you stuff in advance, of the "I would later find out X but right now I was not aware of it..." or "Little did I know then that X..." kind. Well, I really want to NOT be told X either, right then. Several fascinating events were lightly spoilered by this narrative style. If I hadn't loved the book so much, I'd have dinged it more heavily for that, but as it was I just gritted my teeth a few times and sailed on along this starlit journey through unfamiliar lands. Looking forward to the next book as soon as I can buy it.
This is a wonderful, unique story with a narrator who is appealing, fun, bright but uneducated, and whose backstory makes you ache for him even as you have to admire his spirit. Picadilly is a young gay guttersnipe with a flair for cards, an exploited past, and a willingness to court trouble. When he encounters Milord, a dangerous figure from the stews of the city below, the smart thing would have been to keep his distance. Instead, Picadilly cheats him at cards, setting in motion a chain of events that will lead him to a sexy tormented ex-clergyman with a heart of gold (and the body of a college boxer), a skyship captain of brilliant and shy ambiguity, and a lesbian navigator who sees visions of Kraken.
Some people have had problems with the dialect of the narrator - if you read Regency romances, you should have little trouble with it, related as it is to the slang and thieves' cant that peppers many of those books. (I thank Georgette Heyer for my familiarity with many of the phrases.) If that's not familiar, check a sample. The beginning is a thick as it ever gets. I personally found it smooth and easy reading.
The story has a fast-moving plot and the people in it have relationships of many kinds, equally presented without judgment. The characters are all flawed, and all fascinating. The world-building is satisfying, but not intrusive.
The only reason that I take off 0,05 stars is that I really, really hate narrators who tell you stuff in advance, of the "I would later find out X but right now I was not aware of it..." or "Little did I know then that X..." kind. Well, I really want to NOT be told X either, right then. Several fascinating events were lightly spoilered by this narrative style. If I hadn't loved the book so much, I'd have dinged it more heavily for that, but as it was I just gritted my teeth a few times and sailed on along this starlit journey through unfamiliar lands. Looking forward to the next book as soon as I can buy it.