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A review by sophia_turner
Valerin the Fair by Rien Gray
5.0
What Rien does with Valerin the Fair is ambitious.
The prose is sculpted, not unlike a poet weighing every word, every sense of timbre in how words interconnect, and every interposition of image to create texture. At first, this amount of detailed ornamentation can feel like a veneer, but as you continue it's apparent that the wordcraft is load-bearing.
Everything about Valerin the Fair is meant to invoke an ancient, mystic world, completely unencumbered by the familiar. We, as readers, are the ones entering this world, and once you're in, Rien draws the story around you.
And yes, it does live up to its reputation for being spicy. That spice, like other interactions of characters, is woven with the same care as every other element. The pleasure, as a reader, is the experience of being inside what Rien has created, and it's well worth a revisit.
The prose is sculpted, not unlike a poet weighing every word, every sense of timbre in how words interconnect, and every interposition of image to create texture. At first, this amount of detailed ornamentation can feel like a veneer, but as you continue it's apparent that the wordcraft is load-bearing.
Everything about Valerin the Fair is meant to invoke an ancient, mystic world, completely unencumbered by the familiar. We, as readers, are the ones entering this world, and once you're in, Rien draws the story around you.
And yes, it does live up to its reputation for being spicy. That spice, like other interactions of characters, is woven with the same care as every other element. The pleasure, as a reader, is the experience of being inside what Rien has created, and it's well worth a revisit.