Just a book-loving English major with things to say. We do books here, and we work under the assumption that books are evergreen. There's no such thing as a book that is too old to gush over.
So, apparently masterlists are a thing writers on Tumblr do, so instead of a 2024 retrospective (this year...omfg...), I figured I'd do this! My CV has what I think is fair to call an eclectic mix of publications, so we're subdividing this list.
Fanfic
This seems like the category that Tumblr will likely be most interested in generally, so it's going first. Please be sure to CHECK THE TAGS before reading any of these fics. Be safe and take care with your reading!
I Could Have Told You 'Bout the Long Nights - A Polin fix-it fic that focuses on a different way for the Lady Whistledown reveal to go down. (Complete)
Of Fire and Featheringtons - The second work in the Polin Fic 'Verse, this fic focuses on Penelope's attempts to work with Queen Charlotte as part of the Bridgerton family. (Complete)
Lady Whistledown Returns - The third and final Polin Fic 'Verse work, and it focuses on Penelope reclaiming her voice as Lady Whistledown. (Complete)
The Polin Shifter Romance - A Polin shifter AU in which Penelope and Colin have to work together to overcome prejudice--and the Lord Provost Marshal--to end up together. (In progress)
The Canadian Mafia Job - A Leverage fic that focuses on a second-chance romance for Eliot and an OC, and some shenanagins with the Guelph Mafia, RCMP, and Interpol. (Complete)
What Happened Those Nights - A one-shot Romanov fic. Everyone dies at the end. (Complete)
Academic Writing
My dark past is as an academic. There are some publications in it. Unfortunately, the books are paywalled (I don't have any control over that, the publishers do), but they're here if anyone is interested. The articles are not paywalled, so enjoy!
Shakespearean Drama, Disability, and the Filmic Stare - An academic monograph that explores disability and the filmic stare in film adaptations of Shakespeare plays.
"Isolation, Overcoming, and the Filmic Stare in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Iron Man Films" in Disability and the Superhero: Essays on Ableism and Representation in Comic Media - An essay on disability in the MCU's Iron Man films.
The Evolution of the Patient Woman: Examining Patient Griselda as a Source for William Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale - An article that explores the Patient Griselda influences and sources in Shakespeare.
Street Cred: Economies of Shame and Homosociality in
Much Ado about Nothing - A critical reading of homosociality in Much Ado About Nothing.
Original Works (Various Genres)
Writing stuff often comes up at weird times, so here are the oddball writing projects throughout the years.
Infusion - A play written for the Quarantine Playwrighting Bake Off that explores themes of medicine, illness, and anxiety.
"Shakespeare's Zombie" - A sonnet in the vein of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
When All Else Fails - A modern retelling of the Patient Griselda folklore.
"7 Filthy Jokes You Didn't Notice in Shakespeare" - I was literally bored the summer between my bachelor's ending and my master's starting. This was my project that summer.
Kushiel's Legacy consists of two trilogies, and since we've already rounded up the Phedre trilogy, it's time to round up the Imriel trilogy!
This is still Kushiel's Legacy, so content warnings abound below the break, and so do spoilers...this is a review round up, after all!
Well That Got Byronic Fast...
So...I have pretty limited patience for moody edgelord teenage Byrons who insist that they have to go to Fantasy Roman Empire(TM) to find themselves and get over their tragic backstories. Which you'd think would be a problem, because that pretty much describes Imriel no Montreve to a goddamn T. However, there are enough other characters and plot happening in a world I'm rather fond of that I still really enjoyed this book. Not as much as the Phedre trilogy, maybe, but it was absolutely worth the read and I am going to keep going with the rest of the Imriel trilogy. Let's talk Kushiel's Scion.
Hey, hi, hello. This is your SPOILER WARNING for this book and for the Phedre trilogy. Be caught up or be cool with spoilers.
The thing I kept running headfirst into in this book was the thing I didn't have in uni either: any appreciation whatsoever for taking a sense of place to the point where you cannot be yourself where you are and have to go somewhere else. Like. Unless you are literally living in a mold-ridden dwelling that is poisoning you, learn to work with where you are. (I acknowledge that there is a classist undertone to this, but we're talking fiction and Imriel is a prince of the blood. Money is not a problem for him specifically.) Like, I just cannot empathize with Imri's whole "I can't be me in Terre d'Ange." It's very possible to empathize with Imri's childhood trauma and how it affects his growth into adulthood, and his parental trauma is extremely valid. But for fuck's sake, kiddo, STOP BROODING. I do not have patience for Byronic tendencies.
What I did have patience for was Imri learning to navigate intergenerational trauma-affect interpersonal minefields, and having Eamonn as a contrast to that was really lovely. It's clear that Imri needed a friend, and Eamonn is, in many ways, a himbo. Eamonn is absolutely big of heart, and arguably a little bit dumb of ass (this is not a knock on his intelligence. Himbos can be smart. Dumb of ass is a vibe, not an IQ). Eamonn and Imri are a really excellent duo, and I enjoyed their shared page time immensely. Additionally, Eamonn getting a Skaldi girlfriend who he then marries and has to go find in Skaldia was excellent and...please please please give me that story. I want it.
What I enjoyed less was Imri and his Sharizai cousins. Mavros in particular was pushy as all hell in ways that objectively hurt Imri, and didn't give him time to recover from that time he was sold as a slave into the harem of the military mastermind behind a death cult. Like, that's gonna mess a ten-year-old up. Imriel has enough to deal with just on the face of that statement, and he did not need Mavros over here pushing him into Kushelian sexcapades before he's ready. We extremely dislike Mavros in this house.
I would also like to just briefly address the Miles O'Brien of Kushiel's Scion: Gilot. This poor guy was stuck bodyguarding Prince Imriel no Montreve de la Courcel, Prince of the Blood and third in line for the throne of Terre d'Ange from the time Imri was like fourteen, and all it brings him is pain. Not only is Imri over here trying to recover and grow and *super not handling that well*, but the first woman Gilot loves loses their baby and then leaves Gilot. Then Imriel drags his ass to the Fantasy Roman Empire where they live in a shitty student apartment and follow around the most eccentric professor ever. The only upside there is that Gilot meets another woman and her daughter and falls head over heels in love. Until a student riot leaves Gilot with a shattered hand and a bone splinter just floating in his chest. Once they end up accidentally under siege in another city, Gilot pulls a heroism that jams that bone splinter right on into his lung and it kills his ass. Gilot gets the shortest of short straws. He didn't deserve that.
Now. To address Imriel and the Super Sekrit Spy Network That Spans Most of the Globe. I was fine with Delaunay just...knowing spy arts and teaching Phedre, and her passing on that knowledge to Imriel. I was fine with Melisandre just being HELLA AMAZING at 4D chess and politics. To suddenly overlay that with a big old secret spy society felt...actually like a bit of a letdown? I appreciated that Imri learned a little bit about it from Claudia and then decided it was super not for him. That was one of the more mature decisions he made (along with letting a blood feud die with him, which...Good Call, Imri. Well done) in this book.
The fact that the way Imri learned about the spy organization was by banging a married woman in a land where that is SUPER not ok (the fantasy Roman Empire was just as weird about sex as the real Roman Empire, which was both disappointing and also a really interesting contrast to how sex is handled in Terre d'Ange) was...less of a good decision. It also did some complicated things to his trauma about his own sexuality and desires, so...maybe not the best call for Imriel, but I guess he's an adult and he gets to make his own mistakes.
The last quarter (maybe third? Hard to tell in an ebook box set) of the book is the siege of Lucca, and Imri learning to be a soldier and navigating his best friend in Tiberium being possessed by the spirit of his great-great-grandfather, the warlord. This dragged a little, I won't even lie. There were really interesting moments and peices, but I was less interested in warring city-states in the Fantasy Roman Empire than I was with Imri and Co.'s adventures, and their adventures got absolutely eaten by Lucius being possessed by a tactical genius who saved the city. Your mileage will absolutely vary on this one; I have friends for whom this part of the book would be the best.
Overall, I appreciate that Jacqueline Carey is continuing to expand her world and really playing with the tensions and surprises that can come up when you mix "love as thou wilt" with Fantasy Vikings and Fantasy Romans and other cultures in the world. It makes things feel complex, adds tension, and makes Imriel's life deliciously complicated just purely on the basis of needing to code-switch, let alone all the other peices that come with a big, detailed, complicated world. The worldbuilding and character work is still excellent, and honestly I had fun, even if I was less ride or die for Imri than I was for Phedre.
Imri...Have You Considered Just Sitting In Your Room and Not Leaving?
Imriel de la Courcel no Montreve is a disaster magnet. This man not only falls for the SINGLE PERSON in Terre d'Ange that he would not be allowed to have, then he and Sidonie get cold feet, so he marries Dorelei, who ends up extremely dead, setting Imriel on a deeply painful vengeance quest.
My guy. For the love of all that is holy, just go lock yourself in your bedroom in Montreve. Let's talk Kushiel's Justice.
Hey, hi, hello. Spoilers abound below the cut. There is also some frank discussion of anatomy--particularly the bits people use to do the sex. Consider yourself warned.
Blessed Elua has one central precept: Love as thou wilt.
If Phedre's trilogy and the first book of Imriel's were about pushing the boundaries and definitions of that precept, then this book full-assedly asks the question, "What if we didn't do that?" And the answer, apparently, is BAD THINGS. So many bad things. Coercive magical bindings separating you from parts of yourself. A giant bear magician murdering your full-term pregnant wife and the baby she's carrying. You almost dying because said bear magician flayed you like a fish. A long chase through fantasy Russia in winter (Ask Napoleon how that turns out). A super heartbreaking vengeance murder. That time you got caught with the heir to Terre d'Ange and the queen list her absolute shit. Everyone in the family knowing you married someone while head over heels for Sidonie.
Literally, Imriel would have been better off locked in his bedroom. However, instead he got his whole ass mixed up in the above, and it actually turned into a really interesting series of treatises on faith, love, and vengeance, and how the three clash and meld depending on circumstance. What I really want to focus on here are Imriel's relationship with Dorelai and his execution of Berlik, because those are where the really interesting conversations happen.
So...Dorelai. There are a LOT of reasons to forego a love match in favor of a marriage of state to secure the inheritances of two kingdoms, especially when you're Imriel, who is a prince of the blood and also happens to be the son of the two biggest traitors Terre d'Ange has ever seen. His entire political life is atoning for his mother doing and evading the consequences of treason. Plus, Imri and Sidonie are like 17 and 19 when this all goes down. They know they're at least in lust; whether or not they're actually in love is a question in both their minds, and like...fair enough. There is the spice of the forbidden in that relationship, a little bit enemies to lovers and ugly ducking vibes, and also they're TEENAGERS. Teenagers fall in and out of love like it's going out of fashion. There is a logical reason to wonder if these feelings will last, and the political context makes caution seem wise. The PROBLEM here is that they aren't following Blessed Elua's precept, and that bites Imriel in the ass PRETTY GODDAMN FAST. Like, he's miserable from making the decision. He can't stop thinking about Sidonie, even on his wedding night.
And then we come to the single most regrettable masturbation session ever. Like, Imri jerking it this one time ends up having a body count in the double digits in multiple countries. This is also where we meet the Maghuin Donn, or the bear witches. A random bear witch collected Imri's seed from the sacred ground on which he ejaculated and made it into an amulet with which she bound his desires. This is a bit ambiguous in terms of actual meaning, but the practical reality of it means that she can basically puppet Imri, which is BAD. So to get around THAT, someone else protects Imri by binding his desire away from himself. It's...it's not great. And everyone from minute one is like, "this feels like a crime against Elua." But we go ahead and do the binding anyway, and the thing is...this is what allows Imri to stop being a horny, bereft, self-centered little dickhead long enough to learn to actually LIKE his wife.
Dorelei deserved better. Like, this poor woman just wanted a nice guy to run Clunderry and have a family with, and she ended up with Imriel de la Courcel no Montreve and all his baggage and bullshit. He doesn't even WANT her. And while he goes out of his way to be kind and learn to like Dorelai and be considerate, she will always be the second most-important woman in his heart. So it's just all the worse when the Maghuin Donn lure Imriel out to a stone circle and then Berlik murders Dorelei and makes sure to also murder the nearly full-term baby in her belly.
It is messed up on so many levels.
We'll circle back to Berlik, but the weirdest thing about Imri and Dorelei's relationship is that it literally takes magic that blasphemes against Imri's gods to make it happen. Which is just...so fucky. It's so messy. It's blasphemous. It more or less chemically castrates Imriel's desire for Sidonie specifically. Like, the consequences of not loving as thou wilt are BANANAS in this book. And where Phedre was asked for entirely too much by Elua and Kushiel, Imriel is struggling to do the bare minimum to connect with them. Some of that is leftover trauma from his childhood (which...I read about Darsanga. Valid.), but some of it is also just Imriel actively being politically cowardly and as a result his wife, unborn son, multiple vassals, and some random fantasy Russians plus Berlik die.
Imriel is rightfully conflicted and guilty as hell about all of this, and it's really interesting to watch him react in real time as what was essentially a crisis of faith and a sheer lack of belief germinate and eventually rot.
Then we come to Berlik. Once he has murdered Imriel's wife and son, Imriel is over here with everyone calling vengeance. The Albans are screaming for Berlik's literal head (to bury it beneath Dorelei's feet, which is fairly metal), and Kushiel's justice pretty much requires Imri to kill Berlik (no specifics from Kushiel about any body parts though, Berlik just has to die). Imri spends almost a year tracking down the bear witch, and when he finally does, the vengeance almost doesn't feel worth it anymore.
One of the norms of books in the last...eh, five to ten years?...is that protagonists on vengeance quests often find ways to not kill the person, or redeem them, or oops accidental death that the protagonist didn't directly or indirectly cause. Sometimes we get to the edge of vengeance and get the whole, "it's not worth it!" thing. Uh...we don't get that here. Imriel straight up kills Berlik in cold blood. After the two have a conversation about faith and whether they would make their respective decisions if given a second chance. Hell, Imriel doesn't even direct this conversation, it's all Berlik, and Berlik is the one who finally suggests that they should just get this over with. And Imriel does.
This was so genuinely fascinating. Like, there was time, space, and the emotional calm to make any decision. There was rational, thoughtful discussion. Everyone came to the table with, to borrow Berlik's words, humble hearts. Yet it still ended in murder, and Imri is going to have to carry that, just as he carries Darsanga, Lucca, and all the shit in Alba. This man just keeps piling trauma on trauma, and it's always got at least a little bit of social and religious influence. In this specific case, both the Alban and Terre d'Ange gods require this death. But by the time Imriel is facing it down, it doesn't feel worth it. It's another scar on his soul, and he has too many already. He doesn't even want to do it. But everyone--INCLUDING BERLIK--expects it. This whole thing was fascinating to watch.
The one thing Imri is spared is having to boil Berlik's head down to a skull. A reluctant ally does that for him, because Jesus Horatio Christ, Imriel has already done too much, he isn't doing this too. That was quiet good.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book, and I had more fun and more thoughts with this one than with Kushiel's Scion. I've already started Kushiel's Mercy, and I'm looking forward to where it goes!
Yeah, Ok, She Pulled Off Capping the Trilogies
So, I've read books that absolutely nail ending a trilogy or series, and books that drop the ball so hard it's not even funny. This book is somewhere in the middle. It's definitely more toward the positive end, and I was generally satisfied with the conclusion to the Imriel Trilogy. But it wasn't perfect. Let's talk Kushiel's Mercy.
Hey, hi, hello. This is your spoiler and content warning. This book deals with war, sex, and extremely screwy consent. Consider yourself warned.
So. So so so so so. Let's start here: By the time we hit the climax and denouement of this book, I was ride or die. I was sold. I was here for the story to come to a satisfying end. And it largely did. Imriel and Sidonie broke the magic spell with the power of love, released a demon, and they get to be happy together for the rest of their lives. It was earned, and it was fun. And, I will say, we got SO. CLOSE. to complete and utter disaster that my heart was in my goddamn mouth. When I say they pulled this off by the literal skin of their teeth, I mean it. That was all excellent.
The end also was actively doing the conscious work of tying together intergenerational threads in a way that, for readers who read both the Phedre and Imriel trilogies back to back, is quite satisfying. Everything ties together, and it does so in ways that don't feel forced or overly determined. Imriel is an extremely cerebral (I'm being nice, I could 100% have said broody and it would have been correct) protagonist, so he is always making connections and drawing inferences. It gets maybe a smidge overdone and on-the-nose by the end of this book, but there's also something triumphant about it that made me nod at it as it came, but not be mad about it. Imriel has also grown and matured pretty significantly over this trilogy, so that was nice to see at the end of this book.
So what are we dealing with in this book? Well, essentially we have Sidonie and Imriel over here asking to get married, and Ysandre is aggressively neutral on them having a relationship at all--she won't speak against it, but she won't speak for it either. However, she does say that if Imriel and Sidonie marry, she'll disinherit Sidonie. Unless--and this is a big unless--Imriel brings his mother, Melisandre Sharizai, back to Terre d'Ange to serve her sentence of execution for high treason. Despite that being just a a hell of a lot to ask of a son to do to his mother, Imriel is game for it. Unfortunately, that plan gets aggressively sidetracked by Carthage showing up.
Astegal of Carthage shows up under the false banner of allyship, horny as hell for Sidonie, and when he is rebuffed, he and his pet sorcerer cast a spell over everyone in the City of Elua so they believe that Carthage and Terre d'Ange are allies, and that Sidonie went of her own free will to marry Astegal. Imriel is spared this by one of his mother's agents putting a madness spell on him--I guess spells are like oil and vinegar, and there wasn't an emulsifier present so they didn't mix. Either way, Imriel loses a month to madness, and when he wakes up, everyone around him is mad and Sidonie is gone. This is so desperate he goes to Barquiel L'Envers for help making a run for Cythera and his mother.
Once in Cythera, Imriel is bespelled to look like and believe his is Leander Maignard, so he can get into Carthage and gain access to Sidonie. This works, and the two speedrun falling in love again until a kiss from Sidonie breaks the spell on Imriel and they work to break the spell on Sidonie. Escapes and battles and politics ensue, and eventually Imriel and Sidonie make it back to Terre d'Ange, which is about to tear itself apart in a nasty civil war. They infiltrate the City of Elua and break the last spell in quite literally just the nick of time. Then we get happy endings for all.
Like...this was a lot of fun, guys. Imriel and Sidonie together are a compelling pair, we go full "this is what happens when you ignore magic but the rest of the world doesn't," and the politics are beautifully snarled.
There were a few things that fell flat for me. First, while I'm glad the time Imriel spent as Leander was short, it was still too long for me. I did not give a damn about Leander, and I wasn't interested in him falling in love with Sidonie. And since the people around him had been tipped off to what was happening by Melisandre, a lot of potential conflict got eaten. There was also a blunting effect on what could have been really difficult moments for Imriel. For example, having him go to the slave market with the intent of buying humans after he had himself been enslaved. It barely registers for Leander. It should have been huge and hugely traumatizing for Imriel, and it just got skated over. I was so not here for seven chapters of some dude who isn't Imriel.
The other big thing for me, and your mileage may vary on this, is that I thought Sidonie was way more interesting in this book than Imriel. I don't know that the book would have worked purely from her POV, but I'd have at least liked a dual POV. I wanted in Sidonie's head. I wanted to watch those wheels turn from the inside rather than having everything mediated through Imriel.
The last of the big things that irked me is the thing that has been a problem in both the Phedre and Imriel trilogies: a screwy conception of consent.
When Astegal emsorcells Sidonie and marries her, they have sex. Reportedly a lot of sex. (Also, fun side note: If Tumblr would stop putting a red line under the word sex, that would be great. I am definitely spelling it correctly, and I really don't care if some people might find the word objectionable. They can remove themselves from my blog. Stop trying to shame me into self-censoring, Tumblr!!!) When Imriel asks her about it in the name of it being the deciding factor into how fast he's going to kill Astegal, Sidonie says that Astegal didn't force her because he didn't have to; the spell made her willing.
*pinches bridge of nose and takes a deep breath*
Alcohol and drugs can also do this, Sidonie, and that doesn't mean you consented. In point of fact, it means you weren't capable of consent. So there was no consent. I would argue there wasn't even no violence, because he BESPELLED YOU and basically kidnapped and forcibly married you.
Again, the book is very much a product of its time, and people NOW still refuse to understand consent. This is absolutely consistent with the rest of the books, and it's still absolutely frustrating.
This is probably also why I wanted into Sidonie's POV, because there are moments in Phedre's trilogy where you get the sense that she is choosing to believe she consented as a coping mechanism, which is a different and kind of interesting angle. I will say the books don't elaborate much on that, but the sense I got was that while Phedre was in Darsanga, she was holding onto that idea to keep going, and once everyone was safe away and she had time to deal with it and heal, she said she would have given the signale ID there had been ears to hear it, which there weren't. That suggests to me that she is dealing with the coping mechanism as well as the events. The textual support for that is thin, but not nonexistent. Sidonie doesn't get even that much, and I wish she had.
Other than those issues, I had fun with this one. The world building is as strong as ever, as is the political web. That character work is still excellent, particularly with side characters like Barquiel L'Envers. I had a really good time with Kushiel's Legacy, and I do highly recommend it, even if I think Phedre's trilogy was stronger overall.
hi alex! sorry about your troubles with EU bureaucracy 💙💙
I'm sending this ask to let you know (and maybe your followers too) about the idea I had for how to ensure that I am able to get the book in the event of you having to cancel EU orders if the petition moves too slowly, and hopefully, it will ease all the faff on your end if more people are able to do the same:
I'll change the delivery address to my friend's house in the UK
(as well as sign the petition and write to one of the more acceptable eu representatives, of course)
(((is this the one singular instance of yay for brexit?))
For legal reasons, I have no thoughts, opinions, or recommendations on changing addresses on the Kickstarter to get around the EU's new packaging regulations. :)
Unrelatedly, friendship is a beautiful thing, and I hope you and your UK friend enjoy many more years of companionship and whimsy together.
I VASTLY prefer to bead with nymo than anything else, but these silk-satin finish miyukis cut nymo like scissors. I'm hoping to form a truce with 6 lb. fireline to make this happen...
challenging all white women to put in even half the effort they spend on fearmongering to other white women about parking lot abductions to instead support MMIWG initiatives if they want to actually make a difference in protecting women
Chapter 36 of Naamah's Kiss, and that is the THIRD TIME that Raphael has left Moirin semi- or unconscious on the floor. Girl, you need to leave his ass. He will sit there and watch you die...
Ok, I'm on chapter 30 of Naamah's Kiss, and...I remember reading this for the first time at 17 and seeing Raphael de Mereliot's nonsense and kind of going, "oh, oh this seems kinda not good, actually...?"
Well, in my mid-30s, having not read the book SINCE I was 17, let me tell you, one goddamn look at goddamn Raphael de motherfucking Mereliot and I'm just like, "you absolute peice of garbage, back away from the naieve 17-year-old who you have isolated and made beholden to you and whose gift you are using entirely thoughtlessly or I will reach into the pages of the book and castrate you with my teeth!!!"
This book is 1000 times better the second go-round!
So...I thought I wasn't being fair to this book at first. You can't just go from Jacqueline Carey to a debut author without adjusting your expectations. But there is adjusting expectations and then there is wishing a book had gone through a few more rounds of editing before it had gotten to you. And while there were moments that showed some fun and some promise, overall this book did not do it for me. Let's briefly talk The Iron Hex.
I guess technically spoiler warning in that I will probably spoil stuff, but like...you've read this book before.
To be totally fair, I'm going to start with stuff that I liked or that I think worked for this book. I liked that we had a plus-sized heroine who is absolutely cool with who she is and her body. That is always great to see, and Eira had a personality that tended to be fun to be around. Having a Rhona be a queer knight who is finding her way out of an empire's propaganda is also kind of fun, if not exactly groundbreaking.
I also will say that Kerrigan being Eira's father and the almost cartoonish levels of cognitive dissonance in his head worked for me. I live in 2026, I am well versed in powerful men deciding to burn down a specific facet of the world despite doting on a child who represents that facet of the world.
And uh...I actually think that's about all that worked for me. For what didn't work, let's do a list in no particular order:
- Hugo honestly didn't have much of a personality beyond "I want to bang Eira and I really wish I hadn't killed all those witches during the rebellion". And like...yeah, fair enough dude, murder is regrettable, but that had the depth of your average kiddie pool
- I saw the missing princess being the bunny from about the second mention of the missing princess, and she also doesn't have much of a personality beyond "is totally ride or die for Eira and hates Hugo's guts". Seeing the reveal coming isn't always a bad thing, but in this case it got repetitive and frustrating quickly, and went on longer than it needed to
- The sex scene fell amazingly flat. I don't usually have issues one way or the other with sex scenes, but this book reminded me that the ability to write sex well is a SKILL. I didn't have the ick or anything with this scene, but it also wasn't engaging, and despite having been over here and low key rooting for Eira and Hugo, I...I was bored? I didn't care that they were finally boinking?
- The overall sentence level writing of this book wasn't good. My editor brain turned on and I wanted basics like more variation in the word choice, for metaphors not to be weirdly mixed, and for words not to be repeated unnecessarily in sentences. Like...I was almost more mad because a few more rounds of editing and I don't think I'd have had this issue. There was potential and it just didn't fulfill it
- By about the halfway point I was skimming this book and it literally never gave me a reason to re-engage on a deeper level
So...yeah. unfortunately I cannot in good conscience recommend this book, but your mileage may vary. And I have to say that the author did a damn impressive job of marketing this book. The book itself didn't work for me, but Victoria Walsh was bound and determined to get it out there, and she succeeded in doing that.
Page 198 of The Iron Hex, and this isn't how English idioms work:
This is a mixed idiom. They can get off each other's backs or they can stop being at each other's throats, but nobody is on anybody else's throat.
This book is so goddamn frustrating. There are flashes in here of a good story, but then there are things like this and the freaking Tangled reference...
Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh...Ok, so...I didn't think I hated pop culture references in books. Except then Rose in Chains did the Rory Gilmore study tree scene and now The Iron Hex has done the Tangled "they just can't get my nose right" moment, and...
Guys I think I hate pop culture references in fantasy novels.
So, I've read books that absolutely nail ending a trilogy or series, and books that drop the ball so hard it's not even funny. This book is somewhere in the middle. It's definitely more toward the positive end, and I was generally satisfied with the conclusion to the Imriel Trilogy. But it wasn't perfect. Let's talk Kushiel's Mercy.
Hey, hi, hello. This is your spoiler and content warning. This book deals with war, sex, and extremely screwy consent. Consider yourself warned.
So. So so so so so. Let's start here: By the time we hit the climax and denouement of this book, I was ride or die. I was sold. I was here for the story to come to a satisfying end. And it largely did. Imriel and Sidonie broke the magic spell with the power of love, released a demon, and they get to be happy together for the rest of their lives. It was earned, and it was fun. And, I will say, we got SO. CLOSE. to complete and utter disaster that my heart was in my goddamn mouth. When I say they pulled this off by the literal skin of their teeth, I mean it. That was all excellent.
The end also was actively doing the conscious work of tying together intergenerational threads in a way that, for readers who read both the Phedre and Imriel trilogies back to back, is quite satisfying. Everything ties together, and it does so in ways that don't feel forced or overly determined. Imriel is an extremely cerebral (I'm being nice, I could 100% have said broody and it would have been correct) protagonist, so he is always making connections and drawing inferences. It gets maybe a smidge overdone and on-the-nose by the end of this book, but there's also something triumphant about it that made me nod at it as it came, but not be mad about it. Imriel has also grown and matured pretty significantly over this trilogy, so that was nice to see at the end of this book.
So what are we dealing with in this book? Well, essentially we have Sidonie and Imriel over here asking to get married, and Ysandre is aggressively neutral on them having a relationship at all--she won't speak against it, but she won't speak for it either. However, she does say that if Imriel and Sidonie marry, she'll disinherit Sidonie. Unless--and this is a big unless--Imriel brings his mother, Melisandre Sharizai, back to Terre d'Ange to serve her sentence of execution for high treason. Despite that being just a a hell of a lot to ask of a son to do to his mother, Imriel is game for it. Unfortunately, that plan gets aggressively sidetracked by Carthage showing up.
Astegal of Carthage shows up under the false banner of allyship, horny as hell for Sidonie, and when he is rebuffed, he and his pet sorcerer cast a spell over everyone in the City of Elua so they believe that Carthage and Terre d'Ange are allies, and that Sidonie went of her own free will to marry Astegal. Imriel is spared this by one of his mother's agents putting a madness spell on him--I guess spells are like oil and vinegar, and there wasn't an emulsifier present so they didn't mix. Either way, Imriel loses a month to madness, and when he wakes up, everyone around him is mad and Sidonie is gone. This is so desperate he goes to Barquiel L'Envers for help making a run for Cythera and his mother.
Once in Cythera, Imriel is bespelled to look like and believe his is Leander Maignard, so he can get into Carthage and gain access to Sidonie. This works, and the two speedrun falling in love again until a kiss from Sidonie breaks the spell on Imriel and they work to break the spell on Sidonie. Escapes and battles and politics ensue, and eventually Imriel and Sidonie make it back to Terre d'Ange, which is about to tear itself apart in a nasty civil war. They infiltrate the City of Elua and break the last spell in quite literally just the nick of time. Then we get happy endings for all.
Like...this was a lot of fun, guys. Imriel and Sidonie together are a compelling pair, we go full "this is what happens when you ignore magic but the rest of the world doesn't," and the politics are beautifully snarled.
There were a few things that fell flat for me. First, while I'm glad the time Imriel spent as Leander was short, it was still too long for me. I did not give a damn about Leander, and I wasn't interested in him falling in love with Sidonie. And since the people around him had been tipped off to what was happening by Melisandre, a lot of potential conflict got eaten. There was also a blunting effect on what could have been really difficult moments for Imriel. For example, having him go to the slave market with the intent of buying humans after he had himself been enslaved. It barely registers for Leander. It should have been huge and hugely traumatizing for Imriel, and it just got skated over. I was so not here for seven chapters of some dude who isn't Imriel.
The other big thing for me, and your mileage may vary on this, is that I thought Sidonie was way more interesting in this book than Imriel. I don't know that the book would have worked purely from her POV, but I'd have at least liked a dual POV. I wanted in Sidonie's head. I wanted to watch those wheels turn from the inside rather than having everything mediated through Imriel.
The last of the big things that irked me is the thing that has been a problem in both the Phedre and Imriel trilogies: a screwy conception of consent.
When Astegal emsorcells Sidonie and marries her, they have sex. Reportedly a lot of sex. (Also, fun side note: If Tumblr would stop putting a red line under the word sex, that would be great. I am definitely spelling it correctly, and I really don't care if some people might find the word objectionable. They can remove themselves from my blog. Stop trying to shame me into self-censoring, Tumblr!!!) When Imriel asks her about it in the name of it being the deciding factor into how fast he's going to kill Astegal, Sidonie says that Astegal didn't force her because he didn't have to; the spell made her willing.
*pinches bridge of nose and takes a deep breath*
Alcohol and drugs can also do this, Sidonie, and that doesn't mean you consented. In point of fact, it means you weren't capable of consent. So there was no consent. I would argue there wasn't even no violence, because he BESPELLED YOU and basically kidnapped and forcibly married you.
Again, the book is very much a product of its time, and people NOW still refuse to understand consent. This is absolutely consistent with the rest of the books, and it's still absolutely frustrating.
This is probably also why I wanted into Sidonie's POV, because there are moments in Phedre's trilogy where you get the sense that she is choosing to believe she consented as a coping mechanism, which is a different and kind of interesting angle. I will say the books don't elaborate much on that, but the sense I got was that while Phedre was in Darsanga, she was holding onto that idea to keep going, and once everyone was safe away and she had time to deal with it and heal, she said she would have given the signale ID there had been ears to hear it, which there weren't. That suggests to me that she is dealing with the coping mechanism as well as the events. The textual support for that is thin, but not nonexistent. Sidonie doesn't get even that much, and I wish she had.
Other than those issues, I had fun with this one. The world building is as strong as ever, as is the political web. That character work is still excellent, particularly with side characters like Barquiel L'Envers. I had a really good time with Kushiel's Legacy, and I do highly recommend it, even if I think Phedre's trilogy was stronger overall.
OK, I have just learned (from the family fantasy football draft zoom call) that apparently Taylor Swift compared Travis Kelce's penis to a redwood tree. I feel that this means that NOBODY gets to complain about unrealistic penis sizes in romantasy books.
So, page 98 of The Iron Hex and I literally just tweaked my brain on this:
IM SORRY, BUT "SEERING" IS NOT A WORD.
Seers are people who can see magically, whether that is distance or through time. They can "see". The gerund and verb are both "seeing". Seeing can be dangerous. Being a seer can be dangerous.
