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A review by lastblossom
Bitter Medicine by Mia Tsai
emotional
hopeful
medium-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
Thanks to NetGalley and Tachyon Publications for an advance copy!
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.
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
Moderate: Grief, Emotional abuse, and Death
Minor: Child death and Racism