I got to read an early version of this, and even when I was extremely ill and in a lot of pain, it was STILL entirely unputdownable! I laughed so muchI got to read an early version of this, and even when I was extremely ill and in a lot of pain, it was STILL entirely unputdownable! I laughed so much, and my heart MELTED for these two wonderful guys, and it was exactly what I needed while miserable. Absolutely perfect.
Will review it properly when I've read the finished version!
22nd Sept 2024: finished the final version, rtc!...more
Can't believe it took me so long to read this one: it is a DELIGHT! Hambly's signature exquisite, sensual prose and smart women being excellent are onCan't believe it took me so long to read this one: it is a DELIGHT! Hambly's signature exquisite, sensual prose and smart women being excellent are on full display, but with bonus RIDICULOUSLY FUN AND ADORABLE demon-hunting Pekengese dogs!!! Instant favourite! ...more
*I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the c*I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.*
HIGHLIGHTS ~no vows of chastity for these nuns ~supporting women’s wrongs 100% ~don’t touch someone else’s pearl (not a euphemism!) ~drown all colonisers ~brace yourself for ALL the Emotions ~a love triangle that is actually excellent ~if she lets down her hair, RUN
Saints of Storm and Sorrow grabs you by the throat and does not let you go for an instant.
It’s also a book where, to be honest, I feel like my main task is just to make sure you know about it – because once you do, it sells itself. A bisexual nun who can summon typhoons by letting down her hair is caught between the goddess she’s hiding from and the totally-not-Spaniards who’ve colonised her home? In a setting inspired by the Philippines?? What else could you possibly need to hear to convince you that Saints of Storm and Sorrow is a must-read?!?
I know, I know, sometimes we get super excited for books with amazing pitches that, in the end, are let-downs. But this is not one of those times. Saints of Storm and Sorrow is every bit as incredible as it sounds. There is no wasted potential here. If I may add a little more alliteration – Saints of Storm and Sorrow is simply superb.
Anitun Tabu herself, garbed in light, the dark moon of her face too beautiful to gaze upon, the black river of her hair a halo lashing in unseen winds. She was crowned in lightning, the spear of heaven’s judgement in her right hand.
“You called my name, Daughter?”
Lunurin is biracial, the daughter of a woman of the archipelago and a Codicían priest – but although she’s spent a good chunk of her life playing a Christian (and therefore Codicían) nun, in her heart she’s anything but. Not for lack of trying; Lunurin works hard to be soft and pleasant, both for her lover and the Church that’s given her a (kind of) sanctuary; she has kept her head down for years, playing the dutiful Christian novice. Behind closed doors, though, she has her romance with Catalina, another biracial novice, with Catalina’s younger sister filling an almost daughter-like role to round out their little family. Interestingly, despite Catalina’s Christian faith being far more genuine than Lunurin’s, Catalina seems to have no shame or complicated feelings about being queer, despite the fact that her sexuality, and her love for Lunurin, go completely against the church’s rules. But in all other respects she’s a good Codicían woman – and very clearly wants Lunurin to be one too.
Lunurin isn’t, though. And not just because she’s a stormcaller – chosen by Anitun Tabu, goddess of the sky and weather, ‘blessed’ with immense power only kept under wraps by the same powerful talisman that hides Lunurin from her goddess. Lunurin sees the hypocrisies and abuses of the Church and the Codicíans, and can’t close her eyes to them; whenever she can, she helps the poor and abused escape the Church’s reach, often with the help of Alon. In Western terms, Alon is basically a prince, the heir of the island’s ruler since his older brother was exiled; he’s also, secretly, one of the tide-touched, able to manipulate salt water with the blessing of Aman Sinaya, goddess of the sea. And he’s the only one who might be able to help when Lunurin and Catalina make a horrific discovery in the early chapters of the book – one that will lead all three of them to the breaking point, and tear them, and maybe even their island, apart.
It took everything in Lunurin not to laugh until she wept. What divine calling could there be when a primordial goddess of the heavens, with lightning for blood and storms at her beck and call, curled under Lunurin’s breastbone, whispering, “Daughter, won’t you drown them for me?”
Drawing inspiration from the Philippines, its history, and its mythology, the setting of SoSaS feels new and unique, a gorgeous and entrancing contrast to the generic Medieval-Europe-esque backdrop that is so confusingly popular in Fantasy. The world Buba has created here is beautiful and intricate, one that I fell more and more in love with the more I learned about it. The people’s relationship to the land and sea and sky, the matriarchal politics, the pearls, the hair, the wildly different (from Christianity) approach to religion, the trio of goddesses whose chosen ones are so integral to the Aynilan way of life… It’s all incredible. No detail has been missed or hand-waved or not-thought-through, with the result that it feels real enough to be a place you could visit it in person if you chose. It doesn’t feel invented, which is the highest praise I can give to a land that doesn’t exist.
For example, let’s talk about mutyas. In the (unnamed) archipelago that Lunurin lives in – clearly a fantasy version of the archipelago that is the Philippines in our world – cultures vary somewhat from island to island (we know that there are hundreds of languages spoken in the archipelago, and in the prologue, we hear of an island ruled by rajs who have tossed out the Codicíans entirely; Lunurin’s island of origin Calilan had a Datu, who was some kind of ruler; and Aynila, which is the setting of SoSaS, has the Lakan who rules the entire island alone, as best I can make out) but mutyas are one of the many things that tie everyone together. A mutya is a piece of jewellery – usually some kind of hair comb for women with magic, but for others it can take just about any form – set with the pearl the person found when they underwent their naming dive. If a person finds a special kind of pearl, it marks them as goddess-chosen – a stormcaller like Lunurin, tide-touched like Alon, or a firetender, depending on the pearl and the goddess. This is a relatively simple piece of worldbuilding, I guess, but for one thing, it’s a beautiful concept, and for a second, it’s woven throughout the entire book. Lunurin’s mutya is one of the things that helps her control (read: suppress) her magic, so it’s something she nearly always has on her person; it’s a sacred, highly personal object that every Aynilan character we come into contact with has and wears, usually openly; by the time we see someone fondle another person’s mutya uninvited, I didn’t need Buba to spell out for me how shocking and violating that was, because she’d already made sure I’d absorbed exactly how important a mutya is. Every concept Buba invents or introduces us to is like that; easy to understand and remember, shown naturally rather than info-dumped on us, and never forgotten or not-followed-through on.
*I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.*
HIGHLIGHTS ~no vows of chastity for these nuns ~supporting women’s wrongs 100% ~don’t touch someone else’s pearl (not a euphemism!) ~drown all colonisers ~brace yourself for ALL the Emotions ~a love triangle that is actually excellent ~if she lets down her hair, RUN
Saints of Storm and Sorrow grabs you by the throat and does not let you go for an instant.
It’s also a book where, to be honest, I feel like my main task is just to make sure you know about it – because once you do, it sells itself. A bisexual nun who can summon typhoons by letting down her hair is caught between the goddess she’s hiding from and the totally-not-Spaniards who’ve colonised her home? In a setting inspired by the Philippines?? What else could you possibly need to hear to convince you that Saints of Storm and Sorrow is a must-read?!?
I know, I know, sometimes we get super excited for books with amazing pitches that, in the end, are let-downs. But this is not one of those times. Saints of Storm and Sorrow is every bit as incredible as it sounds. There is no wasted potential here. If I may add a little more alliteration – Saints of Storm and Sorrow is simply superb.
Anitun Tabu herself, garbed in light, the dark moon of her face too beautiful to gaze upon, the black river of her hair a halo lashing in unseen winds. She was crowned in lightning, the spear of heaven’s judgement in her right hand.
“You called my name, Daughter?”
Lunurin is biracial, the daughter of a woman of the archipelago and a Codicían priest – but although she’s spent a good chunk of her life playing a Christian (and therefore Codicían) nun, in her heart she’s anything but. Not for lack of trying; Lunurin works hard to be soft and pleasant, both for her lover and the Church that’s given her a (kind of) sanctuary; she has kept her head down for years, playing the dutiful Christian novice. Behind closed doors, though, she has her romance with Catalina, another biracial novice, with Catalina’s younger sister filling an almost daughter-like role to round out their little family. Interestingly, despite Catalina’s Christian faith being far more genuine than Lunurin’s, Catalina seems to have no shame or complicated feelings about being queer, despite the fact that her sexuality, and her love for Lunurin, go completely against the church’s rules. But in all other respects she’s a good Codicían woman – and very clearly wants Lunurin to be one too.
Lunurin isn’t, though. And not just because she’s a stormcaller – chosen by Anitun Tabu, goddess of the sky and weather, ‘blessed’ with immense power only kept under wraps by the same powerful talisman that hides Lunurin from her goddess. Lunurin sees the hypocrisies and abuses of the Church and the Codicíans, and can’t close her eyes to them; whenever she can, she helps the poor and abused escape the Church’s reach, often with the help of Alon. In Western terms, Alon is basically a prince, the heir of the island’s ruler since his older brother was exiled; he’s also, secretly, one of the tide-touched, able to manipulate salt water with the blessing of Aman Sinaya, goddess of the sea. And he’s the only one who might be able to help when Lunurin and Catalina make a horrific discovery in the early chapters of the book – one that will lead all three of them to the breaking point, and tear them, and maybe even their island, apart.
It took everything in Lunurin not to laugh until she wept. What divine calling could there be when a primordial goddess of the heavens, with lightning for blood and storms at her beck and call, curled under Lunurin’s breastbone, whispering, “Daughter, won’t you drown them for me?”
Drawing inspiration from the Philippines, its history, and its mythology, the setting of SoSaS feels new and unique, a gorgeous and entrancing contrast to the generic Medieval-Europe-esque backdrop that is so confusingly popular in Fantasy. The world Buba has created here is beautiful and intricate, one that I fell more and more in love with the more I learned about it. The people’s relationship to the land and sea and sky, the matriarchal politics, the pearls, the hair, the wildly different (from Christianity) approach to religion, the trio of goddesses whose chosen ones are so integral to the Aynilan way of life… It’s all incredible. No detail has been missed or hand-waved or not-thought-through, with the result that it feels real enough to be a place you could visit it in person if you chose. It doesn’t feel invented, which is the highest praise I can give to a land that doesn’t exist.
For example, let’s talk about mutyas. In the (unnamed) archipelago that Lunurin lives in – clearly a fantasy version of the archipelago that is the Philippines in our world – cultures vary somewhat from island to island (we know that there are hundreds of languages spoken in the archipelago, and in the prologue, we hear of an island ruled by rajs who have tossed out the Codicíans entirely; Lunurin’s island of origin Calilan had a Datu, who was some kind of ruler; and Aynila, which is the setting of SoSaS, has the Lakan who rules the entire island alone, as best I can make out) but mutyas are one of the many things that tie everyone together. A mutya is a piece of jewellery – usually some kind of hair comb for women with magic, but for others it can take just about any form – set with the pearl the person found when they underwent their naming dive. If a person finds a special kind of pearl, it marks them as goddess-chosen – a stormcaller like Lunurin, tide-touched like Alon, or a firetender, depending on the pearl and the goddess. This is a relatively simple piece of worldbuilding, I guess, but for one thing, it’s a beautiful concept, and for a second, it’s woven throughout the entire book. Lunurin’s mutya is one of the things that helps her control (read: suppress) her magic, so it’s something she nearly always has on her person; it’s a sacred, highly personal object that every Aynilan character we come into contact with has and wears, usually openly; by the time we see someone fondle another person’s mutya uninvited, I didn’t need Buba to spell out for me how shocking and violating that was, because she’d already made sure I’d absorbed exactly how important a mutya is. Every concept Buba invents or introduces us to is like that; easy to understand and remember, shown naturally rather than info-dumped on us, and never forgotten or not-followed-through on.
*I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This dI adored this and I an UTTERLY unashamed!
Rtc!
*I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.*
Highlights ~amazing group chat names ~don’t trust Santa ~PEEP ~what happens when a Hex curses ~this book sparks SO MUCH joy!
It has been a WHILE since reading a book made me this freaking happy!
The Nightmare Before Kissmass is what I’m delighted to call a squee-book: one that makes you grin, makes you sparkle, that fills you up with fizzy, vivid delight. The kind of book you want to hug to your chest and kiss in the rain and gift to absolutely everyone. I have not read anything of Raasch’s before, but I will be preordering the next book in the Royals and Romance series and COUNTING THE DAYS until it gets here!
This book, though. This book is silly, and knows it, and owns it. I approve immensely.
what’s a Halloween drink? Apple cider? Goat blood?
In a world that is almost ours, the holidays are magical kingdoms ruled by magic-wielding royals. The normal world does not realise that there is a real kingdom of Christmas, or Halloween, or Easter. That’s a secret. But the Holidays wield real power, which is partly why it matters so much that out main character Coal – aka, Prince Nicholas of Christmas – is a well-intentioned fuck-up. His one attempt at Being A Prince backfired massively and got so many people hurt, so he’s primed to do whatever his dad – the reigning Santa – tells him to, for fear of making another terrible mistake.
Except Santa announces that Coal and his best friend Iris – princess of Easter – are to be married. Without consulting either Coal or Iris about it. Inter-Holiday politicking drags the crown prince of Halloween, Hex, into the mess, and events spiral from there.
I have just two sort-of-critiques, and I say ‘sort of’ because neither of them actually bothered me; the romance is kind of insta-love-y, and the worldbuilding is bonkers and nonsensical. I have no problem with insta-love – it’s only lust masquerading as insta-love that annoys me – and as for the worldbuilding?
Yes, it’s ridiculous. It makes no real sense. I could poke endless holes in it.
And folx, I did not care.
If you’ve followed my reviews a while, you might get how big a deal that is: I am unhealthily obsessed with worldbuilding. The tiniest detail can jolt me completely out of a book if it doesn’t fit into the worldbuilding; and worldbuilding that doesn’t make sense to me is often a quick DNF. I’ve put aside books after TWO PAGES because of worldbuilding that immediately doesn’t work for me!
But I was having so much fun with Kissmass that I couldn’t care less. Raasch made me laugh so much that I was able to embrace this adorable, cheeky, absolutely ridiculous premise. I was full of so much fizzy delightedness that I forgot to nitpick. I fell so hard for these characters that it didn’t bother me that their powers were nonsensical.
I LOVED EVERY MINUTE OF IT.
So no, Raasch does not address the fact that these holidays are all religious ones, nor how Christmas’ influence going global is tied to and has echoes of Christian colonialism. Nor is there any explanation for how exactly these kingdoms came to be or if they came before or after humans started celebrating these holidays. (Did the kingdom of Christmas use to be called Yule and changed as the celebration did? Or did they come into existence only when Christmas in its Christian form was invented? Who knows! Who cares? Not me, for once!)
It’s just not that kind of book, folx. If you’re taking it seriously, you’re doing it wrong. You’re not meant to think about the set-up very hard. It’s utterly escapist, sugar-plum-fairy-sweet nonsense, and it’s excellent.
Now I’ve told you a bit about what the book ISN’T, let’s get on to what it IS.
Back to the Point! I realise that it’s wildly overused as a comp, but Nightmare Before Kissmass gave me fantasy!Red, White and Royal Blue vibes throughout. I can make a good argument for the similarities between the two stories, but what really matters is that they have the same FEEL to them; the same sort of wish-fulfilment, the same kind of giggly heart-eyes, the same undercurrent of hope and optimism and joy.
In both books, that’s in big part down to the characters, and I have to say, I LOVED the cast here. Coal is Just Trying His Best – he has such a huge heart, but doesn’t believe in himself at all; not to the degree that it becomes annoying, but definitely enough to make you want to hug him. He’s much braver than he thinks, and you can feel how badly he wants to do right by everyone. It doesn’t hurt that he is well aware of how ridiculous his own existence is, and is willing to laugh at it – but he also genuinely loves Christmas, both the kingdom and the holiday as you and I understand it, and somehow Raasch managed to capture a lot of the childhood wonder and delight in the holiday without making the grown-up part of me cringe. I think that was partly due to Coal’s unselfconsciousness about his own love for Christmas, and making him the first-person narrator meant that came through to the reader as well.
*I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opiniAbsolutely PERFECT.
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*I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.*
Highlights ~dragon cubs! ~don’t touch the swords ~maintaining eco-balance ~unexpected queerness ~the cosmos is definitely listening
I’ve been hearing Lowachee’s name for a long time, but never managed to read any of her books until Mountain Crown showed up on Netgalley. I figured a relatively short book + dragons would be a good introduction for an author I hadn’t tried before.
SUFFICE TO SAY, AFTER THIS NOVELLA I WILL BE DEVOURING LOWACHEE’S ENTIRE BACKLIST!
The plot is pretty well covered by the blurb, so I won’t go over that much, but the WORLD! Please picture me swooning. Lowachee wastes no time establishing her setting; the sense-of-place is so strong and clear, and rings unique, like not quite like anything I’ve seen before. Mostly in terms of the Ba’suon, the people Méka, our MC, belongs to: we learn about Méka’s – let’s call it psychic empathy, for lack of a better term – on the very first page, and it’s rapidly confirmed that this is an ability all Ba’suon have. It’s absolutely fascinating to see how this is clearly Méka’s primary sense – think of how humans are intensely visual creatures, and now imagine all that weight placed on a kind of psychic ability. Lowachee’s worldbuilding is phenomenal on every level, but I especially loved how this one detail – the Ba’suon’s empathy – informs and influences absolutely everything about Méka and her culture.
His energetic presence was a hollow clang to her, an empty bucket struck by the hammer of the cosmos.
But in a way, Méka’s empathy – magic? – is almost defined by absence, in Mountain Crown. Because non-Ba’suon don’t have this ability, and weirder and worse is the way that they feel dead to this sense. Ba’suon can sense each other, and animals and birds and so on…but not humans who are not Ba’suon. This is a direct reversal from the other times I’ve seen fictional cultures with this kind of magic – think the Lakewalkers from Bujold’s Sharing Knife quartet, where non-Lakewalkers don’t have this magic, but Lakewalkers can still see/sense them just fine. So I wonder what it was like, when the Ba’suon encountered other peoples for the first time? Like the Kattakans – imagine being invaded by people who look human, but ‘register’ as completely dead? That must have been horrifying, and it says a lot about the Ba’suon that they haven’t demonised outsiders because of that. It would have been very believable for a people in that situation to become intensely xenophobic…but they’re not.
(I mean, they’re not pro-Kattakan, with really good reason. But there’s no sense of only Ba’suon people are real people, you know?)
That’s important. What we can infer about the Ba’suon from that…almost, I think, gives us the heart of who they are. What defines them as a people.
That, and the dragons, of course. Which the Ba’suon call suon (and the way I flailed when I realised the Ba’suon named themselves after dragons! Or named the dragons after themselves! Again, tiny details which imply SO MUCH!)
larger adults flit back and forth like jeweled bats upon stalactites.
The characters are amazing. I loved Méka; I loved getting to know her, learning who she was. She’s so different from most of the main characters I see; practical but unyielding on the things that matter to her, with a pride that almost doesn’t seem like pride, compassionate without necessarily being forgiving, an unfamiliar kind of optimistic. Her…reverence is almost the right word, but not quite…for the natural world is a beautiful thing to witness, to be inside of for a while. She has a very non-individualistic outlook and attitude that is – pretty foreign to Western culture, really!
I don’t mean to suggest that she’s some perfect Enlightened being: far from it! In her POV the Kattakans are an ‘infestation’, and while she doesn’t offer violence to insults, she definitely invites idiots to Fuck Around And Find Out, with a mien of such steady, implacable surety in her ability to wipe the floor with anyone who tangles with her, that I had to go find a fan.
This was PURE JOY and I hope we get many more books of Droplet and her adventures!
~superficially simple worldbuilding that is actually excellent and iThis was PURE JOY and I hope we get many more books of Droplet and her adventures!
~superficially simple worldbuilding that is actually excellent and interesting ~lost count of how many times I laughed out loud ~possibly my favourite depiction of shapeshifters EVER ~surprisingly awesome nuns ~this author made me fall in love with a character named Cheesebreath, I think that deserves its own award...more
EVERYTHING that I wanted from the sequel to Artifact Space!
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*I received this book for free from the author. This does not affect my opinion of theEVERYTHING that I wanted from the sequel to Artifact Space!
Rtc!
*I received this book for free from the author. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.*
Highlights ~the aliens will surprise you ~being a hero is very odd, actually ~neural lace = superpowered brain ~do we trust the AIs? ~everything you think you know is about to go bye-bye
:this review contains spoilers for Artifact Space!:
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Listen. LISTEN. I reread Cameron’s books every year, at this point. At the time of writing, I just finished rereading his Masters & Mages trilogy for the fourth time. The first book in this series, Artifact Space, made my Best of 2021 list and was the only book I read twice that year. I’ve finished reading it twice more since, and read bits of it many more times than that, when I felt the need to reread particular scenes or chapters without reading the whole book.
To say I’m obsessed is putting it mildly.
I had no idea what was going to happen in Deep Black, but I was pretty sure it was going to be fantastic – AND I WAS CORRECT!
We left Nbaro and co having run off the ‘bad’ aliens and made contact with the Starfish at last. Deep Black opens what feels like minutes later, with the Greatship Athens still at Tradespoint – which is now in the process of being rebuilt, since the Bubbles (our bad aliens) did, you know, blow it up. Cue an exhilarating frenzy of construction, with the Athens making Tradespoint 2.0 much more sophisticated (and comfortable) than it was before. Cameron is especially good at this kind of thing; what would be extremely boring in the hands of another author is somehow (I genuinely can’t figure out how) escapist and delightful and soothing, even when it’s paragraphs of Nbaro welding things together. It doesn’t hurt that Nbaro is one of the very privileged few now allowed to trade with the Starfish directly, and worldbuilding fanatics like myself will swoon at all that we learn about Starfish physiology and…can you call it linguistics when no words are used??? Well, Starfish communication, anyway. Dorcas is doing his best to infer as much as he can about Starfish culture, with sometimes hilarious, often insightful interjections from everyone else, and it’s so freaking fascinating. I am constantly being hit with non-humans in SFF who are just humans in fancy dress, but Cameron’s aliens feel alien, my friends! How they’re built, how they think, how they structure their society… C’EST MAGNIFIQUE! *chef’s kiss*
Readers less interested in worldbuilding don’t have to be alarmed: you will not be drowning in info-dumps, I promise. I genuinely think that the worldbuilding is spread out enough throughout the book – instead of coming all in one or two reveals – that it won’t be overwhelming for anyone. And it’s all so freaking COOL!
Ahem.
So Tradespoint goes fairly well. It’s when the Athens is on the way home that things get…complicated. Again!
I loved Artifact Space, and I still do, but I am in awe of Deep Black. The grasp of tactics and strategy that is Cameron’s signature in his fantasy books is on full display here, but arguably even more impressive because now we’re in space. We saw some of this in Artifact, and it was extremely epic then, but it feels like Cameron’s playing on a whole nother level here. Which is partly because, yes, there are more space battles in this book! And the way that the fighting feels so believable, and so unfamiliar – because of course, you can’t fight a space battle the way you would on land or even water – the way Cameron makes it all make sense, and never, ever forgets that his characters are fighting in three dimensions and specifically, three dimensions in space, where refuelling is a huge concern and astronomical bodies shape the ‘terrain’ and the enemy don’t have to be close to take out your ship – all of it is just so freaking excellent.
The story, also, feels like it’s been levelled up. If Artifact Space was a story zoomed in on the little picture, intimate and almost homey at times, then Deep Space is Cameron zooming out to show us the big picture – and holy gods, it is not what you think it is! The twists and reveals keep coming, but beautifully, elegantly, each building on the last – and the sheer scope of it all! Bit by bit, we’re guided to an understanding of the full picture, not just with regards the conspiracy that’s been taking out Greatships, but also the different factions and philosophies within human space, and humanity’s place in the wider universe; one by one, all our expectations and assumptions are subverted, and it’s done so gracefully, with such brilliant precision. And as for what is revealed? When we learned who are pulling most of the strings, my jaw DROPPED. And yet, it made so much sense, and was just objectively brilliant both in terms of worldbuilding and wow factor!
*I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the c*I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.*
Highlights ~sword-wielding best man ~trade intrigue ~meet-cute < meet-CON ~wonderfully elegant worldbuilding ~thermonuclear levels of heat
Look: Marske has always been a good writer. A great one. A marvellous one, even!
But not until Swordcrossed has she written lines that engraved themselves on my heart in molten gold. Not until this book has she struck me breathless and aching and hurting from how beautiful her story is. Swordscrossed is the first time she’s made me honest-to-gods-WEEP from the sheer tender intensity of the emotions she’s magicked up.
I’m not even exaggerating: I had to put the down and just cry for almost an hour. Not sad tears! Happy tears! And kind of overwhelmed tears, too, because I was just So Full of emotions and had no idea what to do with them. I was shaking!
I’M NOT USED TO FEELING THINGS THIS STRONGLY, OKAY? IT WAS ALMOST SCARY.
Matti didn’t know what to say. There was a bubble of something in his throat, like blown glass or hot chocolate, a tenderness that threatened to sear itself into Matti on a fundamental level.
If I described the plot to you, it would sound like any other fantasy romance. Any other low-magic romantasy. There’s no story-element that makes Swordcrossed unique, exactly. Don’t get me wrong: the plot is INCREDIBLY compelling, there is so much tension-dread-hope keeping the pages turning, and even the most minor characters are vividly alive in a way only the best authors can manage. I was biting my lips and perched on the edge of my seat and frantic to make sure everything would turn out okay – and that is in and of itself an incredible accomplishment when we’re talking about a book where the happy ending is implicitly guaranteed. Books like this often can’t quite manage to sustain any tension, because you know it’s all going to be fine – but I was so nervous! I was so invested! I was genuinely anxious for everyone! Marske made me completely forget that all would be well, so, you know, ALL THE KUDOS FOR THAT!
But the plot’s not – the plot’s not the point. It doesn’t matter, at all, that you’ve heard or read similar stories before.
Because the way it’s written. That. That is what makes Swordcrossed something truly special, something breathtaking.
“I thought I had simple tastes. I don’t care about pearls or silver. I don’t need silk. I can live without cherries and bottles of Diamond Blend.” … “But you,” Matti breathed. “You are the most exquisite thing in this city, and I want you, and I’m going to have you.”
I don’t know if it’s the freedom of not having to fit a story inside real-world history, as the Last Binding books were, or simply growing confidence as a writer, or if it’s something else entirely, but Swordcrossed reads like the work of someone who has cast off all restraint and is exulting in their love of words and storytelling. There are so many more similes and metaphors in Swordcrossed than in any of the Last Binding books, and the effect is extravagant, decadent. You won’t need a dictionary to keep up – the language is every bit as accessible and beautifully easy as it was in Last Binding – but it adds a richness, a lushness, to the prose that makes it obvious how much Marske enjoyed writing this. And that joy definitely comes through to the reader!
Or he could invent a vast family of siblings of all ages for {spoiler}. He could embroider each one lavishly with imaginary traits, and sprinkle them with freckles.
The indulgence – the sense that Marske is writing this book for herself and nobody else – is present in the worldbuilding too. It’s obvious how much pleasure she took in creating this original setting, in being able to invent whatever she liked instead of being limited by writing a story set in a real historical period. There’s a breathless delicacy to every perfectly-placed detail; never so many of them as to become overwhelming, or distract from the plot, but more than enough to elevate the story she’s telling, bring it to life. It’s there in the sensory description, in the figureheads of ships, in all the little moments of plot-irrelevant beauty.
HIGHLIGHTS ~midwives get RESPECT ~know! your!! myths!!! ~not all men sure but DEFINITELY this one ~the MC is Too Logical ~4.5 stars happily rounded up.
Rtc!
HIGHLIGHTS ~midwives get RESPECT ~know! your!! myths!!! ~not all men sure but DEFINITELY this one ~the MC is Too Logical ~sapphic selkies ftw
A Sweet Sting of Salt is what I think is called low fantasy – there’s not a lot of magic at all, and what there is doesn’t try to explain itself. But it’s also a fantasy in the sense of, this is almost a historical fiction novel, but it’s one where queer characters get their happy endings without too much homophobia; where women escape and make lives for themselves outside of the patriarchy, again without nearly as much trouble as people of the time period probably would have experienced. It’s fantasy in the same way a daydream is fantasy, in that one aspect, and I really appreciated it.
There’s enough queerphobia in the real world, I don’t want to read about it in my fiction, okay?
But though it’s low-magic, don’t think this is a low-stakes, low-tension novel, because it most certainly is not. Anxiety for the characters had my guts in knots for a good half of the book, and there’s real, and really awful, violence, with the threat of worse hanging over the heads of the MC and her love interest.
It’s not a chill time, is what I’m saying here. A Sweet Sting of Salt is, well, sweet, but it’s also heart-in-your-throat nerve-wracking when it’s not giving you heart-ache – or both at once! Don’t curl up with this one expecting a calm cosy read, because that is NOT what you’re going to get!
Jean was outed by the spiteful mother of the girl she loved years ago, but earned back the respect of her neighbours by becoming a very skilled midwife. (This is not a coincidence; Jean’s amazing mentor, the half-Indigenous Anneke, deliberately set Jean to learning midwifery because few people are so bigoted they’re willing to ostracize the person their lives, or those of their female relatives, will almost certainly depend on someday.) And as the blurb says, the story gets moving when a heavily pregnant woman Jean didn’t even know about (what kind of pregnant person wouldn’t make sure the local midwife knew about their condition?) appears on her land late at night, only to go ahead and have the fastest and easiest delivery Jean has ever seen.
The mysterious woman is Muirin, who barely speaks a word of English – and yet, Jean is able to pick up on something between Muirin and her husband, Tobias, that makes her insist Muirin and the newborn stay with her for a while ‘just to make sure all’s well’.
I despise the lack-of-communication trope, where things could be cleared up so easily if characters just talked to each other clearly and honestly – but in Sweet Sting of Salt, the issue is that Muirin legitimately can’t communicate, as she knows very little English. And although the reader knows – or at least strongly suspects! – that Muirin is a selkie, and that’s probably why she’s so (charmingly) odd and doesn’t speak English, Jean reaches very logical conclusions to her own questions about Muirin’s nature and origins. A whole lot of assumptions are made, but they’re well-reasoned given what Jean knows of the world. This isn’t one of those stories where the supernatural is staring the MC in the face the entire time and they almost wilfully refuse to see it; although I was frantic for Jean to figure things out and get to helping Muirin, I could absolutely follow her reasoning when she came up with explanations for Muirin’s lack of family, her ignorance of the local culture, and even her strained relationship with Tobias. It was – kind of amusingly frustrating, that Jean was so rational? That there were so many perfectly obvious, perfectly reasonable explanations for all of Jean’s questions? There was just no way for someone in Jean’s position – in life, in history, in geography, even in the patriarchy – to put it together that Muirin isn’t a foreigner in a bad position, but an honest-to-gods selkie.
Part of that – and this is really my only critique of the book – is that selkies never come up in Jean’s thoughts or any other part of her life. I was really surprised that Sutherland never took the time to let the reader know what a selkie actually is – especially given that there was one scene in particular, when a child is asking for water-legend stories, that would have been the perfect moment to introduce the concept and make sure the reader knew the myth of the selkie. If you don’t already know what a selkie is when you go into this book, there’s a good chance you’ll be pretty confused when the reveal does come, as the book is written as if it’s taken for granted that every reader knows about selkies.
I mean, I do? But I’m a myth-nerd born in Ireland, where selkie stories are traditional. I’m not sure how or why Sutherland – or her editor – expects most readers to know what she’s on about. Selkies are not a type of magical creature that show up a lot in fantasy fiction; everyone knows what a dragon is (debates about how many limbs they should have aside) but selkies? Joane Harris’ The Blue Salt Road is the only selkie book I can think of from a reasonably-big-name author, and I don’t think it made enough of a splash (hah!) to put selkies on the map, as it were.
But as I said, this is a very low-magic historical fantasy, where the selkie reveal is a comparatively minor plot-point near the end of the book. Infinitely more important is the relationship that develops between Jean and Muirin, how trust becomes friendship becomes another kind of love; and there are definitely feminist themes, as the blurb promises, but Sweet Sting of Salt never feels like an IssuesTM book – I never felt like I was being preached at, or that Sutherland was stating the obvious and rubbing my face in it, as other heavier-handed storytellers have done.
I think it helps that the focus of the book is so intimate; it’s not an IssuesTM story because it is Jean-and-Muirin’s story. And a big part of that story is the legal powerlessness of women in this time period; is the specific danger most women and femmes face from most cis men, ie the threat of someone who is bigger and stronger than you; is the slowly growing horror of just how awful Muirin’s situation is – one that she is only in because of supernatural means, but that plenty of human women have experienced through history, and still do today. But I appreciated that these were all treated less as themes and more like real, practical problems faced by the characters, if that makes any kind of sense. It’s not about lessons for the reader, it’s about the stumbling blocks and hindrances and outright dangers the characters have to overcome to get their happy ending.
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