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A review by hazelfizz
Point of Hopes by Lisa A. Barnett, Melissa Scott
3.0
Would I recommend this book to myself? Yes.
I love "daily-life in foreign times" mysteries (Davis's Falco for example). And I bought this as part of an "LGBT*" bundle. So, the odds were good I'd enjoy this book. And, while I did, there were a couple of disappointing things that give this one only 3 stars (the same as a perfectly serviceable bog-standard $.99 romance novel) instead of 4 (the same as "totally my genre, will read repeatedly").
Plus:
I learned or re-googled several antique words, so that was fun. No sexism, though the main character was male and the setting is Renaissance (clocks & guilds) Rome (pantheon). Same-sex relationships were fairly common and perfectly normal (in a late-20th century, no-marriage, way).
Minus:
First: the two main characters don't flirt at all. They hardly interact, so it's barely a buddy story either.
Second: two suns & some pigeon-like "gargoyles" (which aren't described in detail) point me toward sci-fi as a reader, not fantasy. But then for some reason the MacGuffin is magical, though magic isn't any part of the heavily described daily life. Lots of horoscopes makes the setting anthropologically thorough, but it was only about two-thirds through that I realized any part of that might be "real".
I love "daily-life in foreign times" mysteries (Davis's Falco for example). And I bought this as part of an "LGBT*" bundle. So, the odds were good I'd enjoy this book. And, while I did, there were a couple of disappointing things that give this one only 3 stars (the same as a perfectly serviceable bog-standard $.99 romance novel) instead of 4 (the same as "totally my genre, will read repeatedly").
Plus:
I learned or re-googled several antique words, so that was fun. No sexism, though the main character was male and the setting is Renaissance (clocks & guilds) Rome (pantheon). Same-sex relationships were fairly common and perfectly normal (in a late-20th century, no-marriage, way).
Minus:
First: the two main characters don't flirt at all. They hardly interact, so it's barely a buddy story either.
Second: two suns & some pigeon-like "gargoyles" (which aren't described in detail) point me toward sci-fi as a reader, not fantasy. But then for some reason the MacGuffin is magical, though magic isn't any part of the heavily described daily life. Lots of horoscopes makes the setting anthropologically thorough, but it was only about two-thirds through that I realized any part of that might be "real".