A review by displacedcactus
A Power Unbound by Freya Marske

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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