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A review by aprillen
One Night in Boukos by A.J. Demas
4.0
A bit of a mystery and a bit of a romance (two of them, in fact), set in a city state in Mediterranean Antiquity. A nice read with low-key, pretty chaste romances, nothing explicit. One of the couples is pretty traditional from a modern point of view - a male guardsman and a local widow -- and the other is not -- a young eunuch and an even younger male prostitute and slave. The latter situation was gracefully handled, I thought, finding the balance between showing the horror of it and how normal and commonplace it would have been in that time or place. Which is, of course, why the very chaste romance works here.
Demas' prose seems plain but paints a vivid, colourful picture of her characters and the city they traverse in search of their vanished quarry, and the dialogue is wonderful. The pacing seemed a bit off on occasion, but didn't detract from the enjoyment of this read.
Demas' prose seems plain but paints a vivid, colourful picture of her characters and the city they traverse in search of their vanished quarry, and the dialogue is wonderful. The pacing seemed a bit off on occasion, but didn't detract from the enjoyment of this read.