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iam 's review for:
Shade Spells with Strangers
by S.O. Callahan, Sarah Wallace
I found the Fae & Human Relations series earlier this year, and I absolutely fell in love with this queernorm historical romantasy setting, not least because it's much more diverse than most romantasy or historical books I've come across.
Shade Spells with Strangers is about gentle Keelan and calm Silas who,after an explosive (the good way) encounter at a party, both get roped into participating in the first study about fae-human magic and unexpectedly meet again.
Keelan is a hopeless romantic who's feeling a bit left out after his best friend gets happily married and who mourns that he can't seem to find his own whirlwind romance. Silas meanwhile is quite happy with his place in the family business, but a bit unsure due to his half-fae half-human status, and while he is happy to participate in the study, he hates being in the city.
I liked the dynamic of Silas being able to sweep Keelan off his feet and providing him with the steadyness and protection he needs and deserves. That dynamic, however, got very little room to shine as the two spend a large chunk of the book apart.
Then there was the fact that Keelan as very... passive. He is described as gentle and lovely and likable, and while all of that is true, I did find it quite frustrating with how he never spoke up for himself - and he is miserable and letting things happen around him without any objections despite hating it quite a lot. I get that a lot of that is done for the pacing of the romance, but it dragged on for a bit too much. Here I also found the lack of intervention by the other characters, many of who claim to love Keelan, frustrating.
Silas as less frustrating how a character, though with him, too, I had a few small issues. The biggest one was that for all his steadiness, there were some instances where his calm confidence came across as almost... demeaning? I'm not sure that's the right word for it. But particularly during the sex scenes, or the initiation of the sex scenes, I found the way he talks to Keelan and takes charge without asking what Keelan wants, just taking his consent for granted, very off-putting. I also found the couple scenes where he apologizes to Keelan to be very unsatisfactory - if I were Keelan, I would have wanted MUCH more than the quick "I'm sorry btw" than he got!
Similarly to how the exact workings of trans inclusiveness and gender expression was not mentioned at all in Fire Spells Between Friends, this book made no mention at all on Silas's being black or how that affected his standing in society. There were a few instances where I thought he was alluding to racism, but they ended up being nonconsequential and there was no racism in the book. So the history or Britain etc. of this world remains unclear.
The book is not without oppression, though the discrimination again fae-humans is actively being fought against by the study. In a less systematic way, the book focuses on arranged marriages and domestic emotional abuse, where one spouse is in control and expects obedience and following rules, as well as not caring for the other (obviously this is not the dynamic between the main couple). What I thought was interesting here was that in this case, the abusers are women and the victims are men.
There also was a subplot about the magic in the form of the fae-human study, though it felt a bit less important this time around - not because it was less present, but because the protagonists had less of a personal stake in it. I did think it could have been a bit shorter, just like the time the protagonists spend apart.
Overall I did have a great time with this, and I really enjoyed revisting this setting, as well as all the appearances of familiar characterss from the other books. I'm also looking forward to the next sequel!
The audiobook narrator once again did a great job, but I will admit that I reaaaally struggled with all the names of the many side characters. The names are all cute and quaint, but my god, in audio I could not keep track, especially since there were so many.
Shade Spells with Strangers is about gentle Keelan and calm Silas who,after an explosive (the good way) encounter at a party, both get roped into participating in the first study about fae-human magic and unexpectedly meet again.
Keelan is a hopeless romantic who's feeling a bit left out after his best friend gets happily married and who mourns that he can't seem to find his own whirlwind romance. Silas meanwhile is quite happy with his place in the family business, but a bit unsure due to his half-fae half-human status, and while he is happy to participate in the study, he hates being in the city.
I liked the dynamic of Silas being able to sweep Keelan off his feet and providing him with the steadyness and protection he needs and deserves. That dynamic, however, got very little room to shine as the two spend a large chunk of the book apart.
Then there was the fact that Keelan as very... passive. He is described as gentle and lovely and likable, and while all of that is true, I did find it quite frustrating with how he never spoke up for himself - and he is miserable and letting things happen around him without any objections despite hating it quite a lot. I get that a lot of that is done for the pacing of the romance, but it dragged on for a bit too much. Here I also found the lack of intervention by the other characters, many of who claim to love Keelan, frustrating.
Silas as less frustrating how a character, though with him, too, I had a few small issues. The biggest one was that for all his steadiness, there were some instances where his calm confidence came across as almost... demeaning? I'm not sure that's the right word for it. But particularly during the sex scenes, or the initiation of the sex scenes, I found the way he talks to Keelan and takes charge without asking what Keelan wants, just taking his consent for granted, very off-putting. I also found the couple scenes where he apologizes to Keelan to be very unsatisfactory - if I were Keelan, I would have wanted MUCH more than the quick "I'm sorry btw" than he got!
Similarly to how the exact workings of trans inclusiveness and gender expression was not mentioned at all in Fire Spells Between Friends, this book made no mention at all on Silas's being black or how that affected his standing in society. There were a few instances where I thought he was alluding to racism, but they ended up being nonconsequential and there was no racism in the book. So the history or Britain etc. of this world remains unclear.
The book is not without oppression, though the discrimination again fae-humans is actively being fought against by the study. In a less systematic way, the book focuses on arranged marriages and domestic emotional abuse, where one spouse is in control and expects obedience and following rules, as well as not caring for the other (obviously this is not the dynamic between the main couple). What I thought was interesting here was that in this case, the abusers are women and the victims are men.
There also was a subplot about the magic in the form of the fae-human study, though it felt a bit less important this time around - not because it was less present, but because the protagonists had less of a personal stake in it. I did think it could have been a bit shorter, just like the time the protagonists spend apart.
Overall I did have a great time with this, and I really enjoyed revisting this setting, as well as all the appearances of familiar characterss from the other books. I'm also looking forward to the next sequel!
The audiobook narrator once again did a great job, but I will admit that I reaaaally struggled with all the names of the many side characters. The names are all cute and quaint, but my god, in audio I could not keep track, especially since there were so many.