Gods DAMN that was MOST EXCELLENT. Genuinely addictive - even when I was caught in brain-fog and struggling to concentrNEW FREAKING FAVOURITE UNLOCKED
Gods DAMN that was MOST EXCELLENT. Genuinely addictive - even when I was caught in brain-fog and struggling to concentrate on ANYTHING, I was still completely hooked by Beau and Elias and Penny!
A fair bit of this shouldn't have worked for me - the prose is simpler than I like, the worldbuilding's not terribly detailed (although we're clearly going to be learning a lot more about the magic and related topics in future books) and despite being in a vaguely Medieval setting, the characters use plenty of modern turns of phrase. All things that have bored or annoyed me from other writers.
But here, I didn't care. Because McPherson made me FEEL, constantly, ALL THE THINGS. Her characters are so well-crafted - not only did I find them interesting as characters, I also fell head-over-heels for all the main trio. Beau is earnest and genuine, and so angry, and feels everything so strongly; Elias hits all of my competency-porn buttons, is utterly devoted, and just enough of a martyr that I want to hug him as well as shake him; Penny also gives competency-porn, but with politicking and communication rather than swordfighting, is secretly a magic-nerd, and Will Do What Must Be Done at any cost. Each of them could carry the novel on their own; intertwined, they're MAGNIFICENT.
Even if the language is a touch simple, the storytelling is masterful. What starts out with a grieving prince shoved into the role of crown heir (which he is in no way ready for) develops layers very quickly; there are several smaller subplots, like Beau discovering that there are nobles assaulting palace servants, which won me over even before the 'big' plotlines got properly underway. And the big plotlines are always there, subtly in the background even when things look simple: I adored how well the clues to the various mysteries were woven into the story, how McPherson toyed with my suspicions and theories, how well the tension was drawn out before each reveal. Almost every detail we're given turns out to be vitally relevant later, usually in ways I never saw coming, and I cannot emphasize enough how freaking delighted I was by how neatly it all fits together.
And, listen. I am generally unbothered by romances in my fantasy. I don't mind them being there, but I rarely get invested. HI, I WAS INVESTED. I SHIP IT MOST EXTREMELY. I thought both romances - between Beau and Elias, and Beau and Penny - were great, and balanced really well; I liked the contrast between Beau and Elias having known each other for years, and Beau and Penny starting out as strangers. Maybe the pagetime skewed a little Beau-and-Penny towards the end, but for very good reasons entirely justified by the story - and at no point does Elias become forgotten or unimportant. (Also, I am VERY here for this trio having one braincell between them, and it's Penny's.) Even the sex scenes were excellent, and my asexual self usually couldn't give a damn about those!
If I have one actual critique, it's that claiming the throne became about it being Beau's birthright, when earlier in the book, it was much more an issue of 'Beau will be a better king than any of the alternatives'. I wish we'd kept hold of that, that's much more convincing and important than 'this dude should be in charge because his dad was', but eh, I'll allow it. They are in a monarchical setting.
I did not expect to have this much FUN with this book. Much of it gave me that fizzy, glittery feeling where you want to swing your feet and hug the book to your chest; plenty of moments made me laugh out loud (scaring the dogs several times); and I melted with Feels more than once. I was interested, I wanted to see how things turned out, I wanted to know more about the magical artefacts (extremely plot-relevant) and Elias' backstory (*chef's kiss*), Beau's tattoos and Penny's (marvellous) scheming, who killed Beau's brother and WHY. There was tension and outright anxiety, way too much (non-romantic) heartbreak, outright FURY at Beau's parents and far too many other scumbags. I had to put the book down and stare at the wall and try VERY HARD NOT TO CRY when McPherson proved that no, this was NOT going to be the kind of fluffy romantasy where all ends well for everyone and no character is in real danger.
Which made it so much more than it would otherwise be. King's Trust does not feel like popcorn, even though it absolutely has that gimme-more popcornish quality; it's not brainless fluff, even if it's as (wonderfully) easy to read as fluff is. It feels satisfyingly rich; it's a story you can sink your teeth into. It's wry and thoughtful and funny, vibrant and clever, earnest but complicated enough to lose yourself in. It is everything romantasy is supposed to be!
In no way does King's Trust feel like a debut; this feels like the ultra-polished novel of an experienced author, and I am wowed by it. And I am setting up google alerts for news of the sequel in another tab as I write up this review.
4.5 rounded up. I don't I know how I feel about 'it's wrong to resist oppression with violence' messaging anymore, but it’s an incredible book regardl4.5 rounded up. I don't I know how I feel about 'it's wrong to resist oppression with violence' messaging anymore, but it’s an incredible book regardless, really beautiful, and I hope we get to revisit these characters many times in the future!
Inhaled 70% of this 800-page tome in a SINGLE DAY and it left me PHYSICALLY REELING. Literally dizzy for an hour after I finished it!
OMG.
rtc!
*I receivInhaled 70% of this 800-page tome in a SINGLE DAY and it left me PHYSICALLY REELING. Literally dizzy for an hour after I finished it!
OMG.
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.*
This book hit so hard it left me reeling. I was physically dizzy for hours after I finished it!
(The fact that I read almost the whole 800 pages in one go – with no breaks for eating or drinking – may have contributed, I admit. BUT ONLY PARTLY!)
The Raven Scholar is an incredibly impressive tapestry of subverted expectations. The moment when it becomes clear that this ISN’T written in third-person (even if it reads like it is)? GENIUS. And really, that moment should have given me a head’s up that I shouldn’t take anything about this book at face value; it should have warned me that so many things and people and events were going to prove not-what-they-seemed. Perhaps smarter readers will learn that lesson! But I did not, with the result that I was surprised over and over – even when I was sure I knew what was happening, I was wrong every single time. Hodgson kept me on my toes for all 800 pages, and I loved every second of it.
Even though I went in quite wary. I’m not a fan of tournament stories, and I’ve never cared about compete-for-the-throne plotlines (at least, not when the competing takes the form of a literal competition). I picked up Raven Scholar not because the pitch appealed to me, but because it was garnering so much praise in other corners that I figured, why not? So let me address some of the concerns other readers might have about the tournament and its set-up: first off, the competition? Is genuinely interesting. Besides duels between all the participants, competitors have to complete challenges set by each temple. These challenges are not the same from one tournament to the next, so no one knows what to expect each time – and none of the challenges are what I’d call conventional. One involves house-cleaning; another is subterranean; one involves dramatic performance on a stage. And for the most part, you can actually see how each challenge tests a necessary skill an Emperor ought to have. I can’t think of another tournament story where that’s the case.
The other aspect some readers might feel hesitant about is who is setting these challenges. Because the temples stand for – and attempt to embody the traits of – the Guardians, the eight animal gods (one of which is, of course, the Raven). The temples themselves are less of an issue than the fact that, in this society, everyone declares for a Guardian when they reach adulthood, making their choice based on their dominant personality traits. So someone who’s very scholarly might declare for Raven, while someone very proud might choose Tiger. Described like this, it might give you horror flashbacks to Divergent, but fear not!!! It really isn’t like that at all – for one thing, unless you gain a place in a temple, everyone lives mixed up together, not in separate districts or cities divided by which Guardian they follow. And in fact, by the end of the book, I felt that I understood what the purpose of this system – having each person declare for a Guardian – was, and more than that, I could see how it was meant to work, and the good it’s meant to do. We only see a tiny bit of the Empire in this book, so we don’t yet know the effect this system has on wider society, but what we did see impressed me. It. Looks like it might really work, actually???
(Even in the case of the villains, I would argue that it’s not that the system has encouraged their awfulness – it’s that these individuals have deliberately abandoned or ignored part of their Guardian’s precepts, in order to twist part of them. It’s fascinating!)
Divergent was about dividing people. Hodgson’s take is about knitting people together, even though it might not look it at first.
Which brings us back to: Raven Scholar delights in not being what it looks like. The first chapter reads like the opening of a coming-of-age adventure; it isn’t. (And prepare to be gutted by how much it isn’t.) From there, we timeskip to the tournament – except this really isn’t a tournament story, for all that the book uses that as a framework. Almost immediately, we have a murder – only when push comes to shove, this isn’t a murder mystery, either. Raven Scholar initially takes a very high-brow approach to its storytelling, but that’s almost certainly just to make sure you’re taken aback when Hodgson reveals her sly, glittering sense of humour (do not read after midnight, you will wake the household laughing your head off at least once). A story that starts with a fairly narrow view expands wider and wider as the book goes on. Truths that are established right away turn out to not be true at all, just as a number of lies and fantasies reveal themselves to be all-too-true,-actually. Every time you think you have a handle on what it is – on where the story is going – the tables are flipped as the ground drops out from under you.
(In the best way.)
So what is it, if it’s not a tournament or a murder mystery or any of those things?
*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.*
Listen, I picked this one up EAGER to be charmed, okay? And I tried, I really did. But too much struck me as outright nonsense for me to put up with.
Let’s start with the greats: I straight-up ADORED Bianca – she is an incredible character and I love her. I was really pleasantly surprised that after a fairly meek first chapter – in which we see how eager she is to earn her parents’ approval – she reveals herself to be not just determined, but hyper-competent, confident, and possessed of a very spiky temper (which she is great at controlling when she needs to). Here is a noble-born woman who is GOOD at politicking and dancing and all the rest of it, and who enjoys being good at them and knows she’s good at them. I guess this shouldn’t be such a big deal, but it is, because somehow we rarely get to see characters who seem like they were raised in a real noble house. She can even use a sword and dagger, just to put the seal on her badassery!
(Obviously you don’t need to be good with a sword to be a badass, do I really need to make that caveat? But you know what I mean!)
The worldbuilding is thin as tissue paper, but that actually didn’t bother me so much – I wasn’t expecting Epic Fantasy levels of worldbuilding from a book marketed this way. The prose is…fine? It’s not bad, it’s nothing special (although there are occasional flashes of brilliance with similes). I am very hard to please with first-person, but Bianca’s voice was acceptable.
Unfortunately, pretty much nothing else worked for me. Specifically, nothing made sense.
Bianca’s older sister, Tatiana, has been quietly allowed to duck out of mage training – which is mandatory and takes nine years. But their parents have paid off the mage guild. Hi: are you high? If magic is so dangerous that it legally requires nine entire years of training, then under no circumstances ever would you let mages go untrained! Which honestly seems to prove itself with Tatiana, since one of the first things we learn about her is that she accidentally (?) let loose a whirlwind at a dinner party! WHAT THE HELLS.
Bianca is willing to go off and marry the crown prince of a neighbouring country in order to finalise an important treaty. No issues there. But almost her first thought is that she’ll have a much better life as queen: what??? Specifically
as a queen, I could choose my own appointments. Keep to my rooms, or my bed, when I was too sick to stand instead of making myself more ill by pushing through, and do so without dreading the rebuke I knew was coming at the first private moment.
Um – no, actually??? I realise your country no longer has a monarchy, but that is an unbelievably naive view (from a woman who at no other point, on no other topic, appears naive). You have no idea what your fiance is like: he could absolutely rebuke you (he could, in fact, be FURIOUS to learn your country has pawned him off with a chronically ill queen: why is no one concerned about this???), he could be an absolute monster, and you have no idea what your duties are going to be. Control of your appointments is not at all guaranteed! If anything, I would imagine your presence is going to be much more vitally necessary at the events you’re scheduled to attend than it is in your life now – any event that requires the queen’s presence is going to be much higher-stakes than an event that wants a random noblewoman to attend. What???
The woman who makes Bianca’s tonics – the medicine for her condition – is known as her apothecary. But she also does Bianca’s hair and helps her dress? How do you have an apothecary’s skills AND a lady’s maid’s??? Those are both full-time gigs! I’d understand if her apothecary MASQUERADED as her lady’s maid, that might be a good way to let her be part of Bianca’s retinue without giving away Bianca’s illness – but she actually fills both roles? HOW?
On the ship to her new home, we learn that the leader of her new guard is Bianca’s EX. Why the hells did Bianca not get a say in who had that position?! Why was that allowed to happen? This is ridiculous, the last person you’d want in this situation is an ex!
And so on. It’s all tiny details like this. Bianca arrives at her fiance’s palace and is told the wedding is taking place the next day. A) what the fuck B) why C) how was the date not nailed down in the treaty this marriage is supposedly sealing?! Bonus: besides the ambassador, no one from her country is coming. Not her parents, not her sister, nobody. She’s about to be a QUEEN, her marriage is cementing an apparently VERY IMPORTANT treaty, and no one back home cares??? Why the hells not?
Bianca does not know when her fiance’s coronation is: what? That is such ridiculously basic information you would have if you were going away to marry an about-to-be king! (Are her family showing up for the coronation? That wasn’t answered by the 30% mark, which is when I stopped reading, but it seemed to be implied that they were not!) Bianca thinks she’s going to be Aric’s equal: why? Do queens have power in his country? In most European countries (which the setting seems mildly inspired by, in that generic Fantasy way) queens had a lot less power than kings, so it’s not guaranteed! Bianca does not see it as a red flag when the coronet she’s given is silver, as opposed to Aric’s golden one: ???
The wedding ceremony involves blood magic. Bianca did not know this ahead of time. HOW? HOW DID YOU NOT KNOW THIS? It’s apparently the norm for royal weddings (not clear whether non-royal weddings involve the same), so it shouldn’t come as any kind of surprise! You should have known about that before you ever got on the ship!
But the point at which I would have defenestrated this book, had I been reading a paper copy, was in the moments after Aric is turned into a horse.
Because.
Wait for it.
HE JUMPS OUT OF A SECOND STORY WINDOW.
AS A HORSE.
………………….IS THIS A JOKE?????????????
How did he not break all four of his legs? HE’S A HORSE! And he KNOWS he’s a horse, he’s not disoriented or anything – he tells Bianca to get on his back, he’s grasped the situation.
Does he not know horses??????? Why would it even OCCUR TO YOU to jump out a window in horse form??? Why on EARTH didn’t you just kick down the door and run off into the hallways and get outside that way? For that matter, why didn’t Stevenson just write them into a ground-floor room???
But reader, you should be proud of me, because I actually didn’t stop there! I kept reading! And I was not rewarded for it! Because Bianca and horse!Aric run away for no apparent reason. Later, they discover that only Bianca can hear Aric’s horse-telepathy, but at the point that they run away they don’t know that, so??? Why would you run away from your guards? Why didn’t you think Aric could talk to his soldiers and explain? You could have run away AFTER, when you realised that wasn’t possible, but running away before?
Bianca doesn’t even ask why they’re running away!!!
*screeches and tears my hair out*
I’m not even going to get into why the protection spell Tatiana gave her sister turned someone into a horse who could telepathically speak to her. I’ll be generous and assume Tatiana screwed up and that wasn’t what the spell was meant to do. ‘CAUS IT SURE LOOKS LIKE TATIANA THOUGHT TURNING SOMEONE INTO A TELEPATHIC HORSE WOULD BE A GREAT WAY TO DEAL WITH AN ASSASSIN! (Horses are dangerous, if you were going to turn an attacker into something why not a mouse or a ladybird or something else that can’t hurt you?!)
Behooved gave me such a headache. And the banter between horse!Aric and Bianca was not my idea of funny or charming. The glittery feeling that comes with the best Fun books just wasn’t here for me even aside from nothing making sense. Maybe it gets cute later on, I don’t know. I’ll never know, because I’m not reading any more of this.
There's nothing wrong with this book at all - the writing is excellent, and I think the story is more interesting than the one in the first book. It'sThere's nothing wrong with this book at all - the writing is excellent, and I think the story is more interesting than the one in the first book. It's just not the kind of story I'm interested in (and not what I expected from the original blurb). It's a very timely story - about persecution and alienation and abusive governments and so on - but it's not what I signed up for. And while I might, in the future, come back to it when I'm in the mood for this kind of story, I don't see that happening for a while.
Potential readers should know that from what I read, this stands alone perfectly, so you don't need to have read the first book (although you'll appreciate Kalyna's character much more, more quickly, if you have). If it sounds interesting to you, go for it! Seems like a good book - this is entirely an issue of incompatible book and reader, not the book having objective flaws....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 ~a heroine who’s actually ugly! ~the kingdom’s downfall…is mould ~one very excellent talking cat ~sentient houses ftw ~put that heart back where it came from, or so help me!
I probably wouldn’t have picked up Harvest of Hearts if it wasn’t being published by Erewhon Press, aka my favourite indie – and that would have been a shame, because it’s a marvellous little book!
The blurb is not wrong: Harvest does bear a tiny, superficial resemblance to Howl’s Moving Castle – they both feature brilliant, no-nonsense girls ending up as housekeepers to ridiculous wizards under false pretences. They both have wonderful not-human companion characters – Calcifer in Howl’s Moving Castle, and Cornelius the cat in Harvest.
But that’s it! They are not the same story, and Harvest never struck me as derivative. The similarities are only set-dressing. So please adjust your expectations accordingly – if you’re looking for another Howl’s Moving Castle, this is not it.
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about what Harvest is!
the city’s blooming flowers that clambered over every wall, great fat things with too many petals, like women wearing all their best clothes at once.
Harvest is defined by Foss, the main character who is also our narrator. Foss is a delightfully no-nonsense, practical young woman, very direct and blunt and – not crude, exactly, but – earthy? Frank. She calls it like she sees it, and a lot of what she says are things plenty of us have to be thinking, but that almost no one mentions;
he stepped a few feet ahead and led me forwards, tail up and twitching, his little cat arsehole winking at me with each step.
If you have ever walked behind a cat, you have absolutely had this moment too!
I really, really loved this about Foss. I loved that she could talk about the practicalities of being a butcher without flinching or prettifying the work; I loved that she masturbates and doesn’t couch that in euphemisms either (take a second and think about how rarely you see any mention of women masturbating in fiction); I loved her phrasing, the imagery and word choices that make her sound like exactly what she is, a young woman who’s grown up in a rural village, doing manual, blue-collar work, deeply sceptical of Fancy Stuff. A neat example is the repeated use of the word ‘sparklies’ to refer to the Extremely Expensive jewel-work all over rich people’s clothes and carriages and whatnot – instead of being awed, instead of waxing poetic about jewels and gems, we get the dismissive, kind of patronising term ‘sparklies’, as if she’s talking about kids playing dress-up or birds collecting bottle-caps. This kind of attention to detail is everywhere present in Foss’ narration, and helps make the sense of her personality so clear and strong.
I can’t remember the last time I saw an author craft first-person narration with so much care, paying so much attention to word choice and imagery, making sure every word reinforces the character. It’s just – *chef’s kiss*
a long black leather boot with a shine on it like the wet on a dog’s nose
Stunning, amazing, introducing us to the world and characters via a journalist writing a feature piece is GENIUS, and! the!! WORLDBUILDING!!!
Excuse mStunning, amazing, introducing us to the world and characters via a journalist writing a feature piece is GENIUS, and! the!! WORLDBUILDING!!!
Excuse me while I swoon!
Instant new fave, can't WAIT to dive into the next book, WHERE HAS THIS AUTHOR BEEN MY WHOLE LIFE???
Full review!
Highlights ~sapphic dragon racers ~neon feathered dragons ~when found-family -> legal family! ~what are these two nobodies doing dominating this sport ~it’s FREE so you have no excuse not to read it
I’M GONNA NEED EVERYBODY TO DROP WHAT THEY’RE DOING AND GO READ THIS RIGHT NOW.
(You can find it on Smashwords, the Big River site, Kobo, everywhere, COMPLETELY FREE!)
Quick context: I’ve been struggling to read anything new, instead of rereading old faves, this month; I’ve also felt like I have nothing to say about what I’ve been reading. This book, though, lit me up like a Roman candle and blew my reading slump to smithereens AND ALSO I WANT TO NEVER SHUT UP ABOUT IT so, you know. That should already be enough proof that it’s excellent!
Brimstone Slipstream is a novella – just 65 pages, according to Goodreads – that introduces us to the setting and characters of Weber’s Street of Flames series. The conceit is that it’s an article written by a journalist, interviewing the best dragon-racing team around, with enough context and background info to be interesting and informative to readers who don’t know much about dragon racing – LIKE, YOU KNOW. US IN THE REAL WORLD.
This is just – such a great introduction to the world Weber’s created. It’s incredibly readable, and sort of friendly somehow – Shenireen’s voice is wonderful, her kind of wry slant on things, her genuine fascination with the topic and people she’s covering, and most of all the way she invites the readers of her paper to come along on this journey with her. Some of her explanations do get a little dense at times – I had to read a couple of passages twice to be sure I understood what was being said – but only momentarily, and what’s being told to us is so worth the bit of extra effort!
Zaya and Kiriki are characters who aren’t going to give all their secrets away to some journalist. They come from a disenfranchised minority, who are not supposed to be rocketing to the top of the rankings in a sport dominated by the rich-and-dumb – and are killing it anyway. I loved meeting them, and their family, who are also their racing team. In this world, people’s found/forged-families can become their legal families, so although Zaya and Kiriki are the only ones married, the rest of the team also bear the name Shearwater, despite not being blood-relations. I approve immensely.
The worldbuilding is detailed, original, and phenomenal: we have multiple species of feathered dragons who can adapt physiologically to environmental stressors, empaths, Central/South-American vibes, ancient cities built by magically advanced nomads, cycles of colonialism and immigration… I’m honestly stunned, and so impressed, by how much thought has gone into this! And I adore that it looks like nothing else I’ve ever read, no other setting I’ve seen. Bits of it have a very modern flavour – like the classism and racism endemic to the sport of dragon-racing – but so much of it is just perfectly unique: a city where people move from district to district in time with the breeding cycles of different dragon breeds! THAT IS SO FREAKING COOL!
And of course, there’s that gut-punch ending.
TL;DR: I fell in love with this world and cast in 65 pages, and I am diving into book two (which is on sale for only $0.99 this month on all sites!) the second I post this. I am mad I didn’t hear about this series till now, and I fully intend to make it everyone else’s problem!...more
I loved it SO MUCH I didn't even care about all the typos.
ALL THE YES!
rtc!
Highlights ~Central/South American setting ~with FEATHERED DRAGONS ~family is I loved it SO MUCH I didn't even care about all the typos.
ALL THE YES!
rtc!
Highlights ~Central/South American setting ~with FEATHERED DRAGONS ~family is hard (but so worth it) ~illegal dragon-racing ~neon hair = queer ~Empaths Do It Better
:Although listed as book two, Windburn Whiplash is the first novel in the Streets of Flame series. The book listed as book one is a prequel novella, Brimstone Slipstream, set six years earlier. You don’t have to read it first, but it’s excellent, so why wouldn’t you?:
I dove right into this after finishing Brimstone Slipstream, the novella that introduces this series. And although Windburn Whiplash is very different – mostly because it’s a novel, not a novella framed as a journalist’s piece on an illegal sport – I was not disappointed!
Weber goes hard on the worldbuilding, but takes a very balanced approach to conveying it all to the reader. On the one hand, each chapter starts with an excerpt from a visitor’s guide to Yemareir (the city which is our setting), which give us quick rundowns on things like the various pharmaceuticals available, or the differences between dragon breeds, or the fucking demons. (Delightfully, the visitor’s guide is written by the same journalist who ‘wrote’ the article that is Brimstone Slipstream!) But most of what we learn from the excerpts is…fun-to-have info, but not necessary. The necessary stuff comes hard and fast and depends on the reader being alert and paying attention – little is explicitly explained; info-dumps simply do not exist here. For example, it might take you a while to realise that Zaya and most of her family are brown-skinned; it only really becomes clear in contrast to their one pale-skinned family member, or a brief description of one of the children as ‘rosewood’. (Alternatively, you can pick up the cultural coding, like the mentions of the haka, and conclude that Weber is not enough of an idiot to pull inspiration from Maori culture and give it to a fictional white group.)
This is basically my favourite approach to worldbuilding – one that rewards rereads and presumes readers don’t need to be spoon-fed – and I ate it up here with sprinkles. *chef’s kiss* It’s especially great because, reading this directly after finishing the ‘intro’ novella Brimstone Slipstream, I assumed I now knew everything I needed to know. Surprise! I did not; there was still plenty more to learn about this setting, and that there was more to learn plus what there was to learn delighted me endlessly!
Yemareir is a city in a Central/South American environs whose districts are each built around the ‘broodspires’ of different dragon breeds; different breeds reproduce at different intervals, so each district is out of commission (and unlivable) at different times every few years. The solution to this is surprisingly neat for a bureaucracy (although I bet it must have been such a hassle to set up!), and I won’t spoil it – but I will tell you that some of it depends on ancient, impossible-to-replicate magics that I really hope get explored more in future books! The dragons – wyrms – themselves remain incredible: feathered, often brightly-coloured, very interested in alcohol, and able to adapt physiologically to environmental pressures. (I cannot overstate how freaking cool this is, or how brilliantly dragon-racers take advantage of it!) And of course, we get to see a lot more dragon-racing in this book, including more of the individual races, each of which has a set ‘course’ with its own history, challenges, and perils.
Because even if the book opens with Zaya out of the game, obviously she’s getting dragged back into racing. Obviously. And although the blurb sounds fairly straightforward, things are actually pretty complicated: there’s the nature of Vanako’s adoption, for one, which leads to a lot of tension in Zaya’s home as the family divides on whether or not to keep Vanako around, and the reason Vanako was dealing at all is a mystery that winds through the entire book. A small subplot that grows more and more important is the ‘illness’ of Zaya’s son, who is – let’s call it haunted – by a demon that no one can do anything about, and which will kill him sooner or later in a horrific manner; he’s not a one-off, either, because being haunted in this fashion is a recognised, not-nearly-rare-enough condition, one so well-established there are even support groups. And not only does Zaya not own a dragon at the start of the book – which she’s going to have to rectify if she wants to race! – she also doesn’t have a partner, and a partner is mandatory if she wants to use her empathy-magic to win the way she and her deceased wife used to.
Yemareir is so believably complicated, as full of surprises and contradictions as a real city, and over and over again that was what struck me about Windburn Whiplash: it all feels so powerfully real, so easy to believe in. That we’re talking about a story packed full of dragons and demons and empaths doesn’t seem to matter; at no point did I ever feel that any part of this book was impossible, unrealistic, Too Much or Too Little. We have politics and social classes and traditions not everybody follows (because what tradition is universally followed or understood by those who follow it?), impossible magics that are taken for granted right alongside a police force I’d love to see defunded. And, vitally, we have characters who leap off the page; messy, complicated, brilliant characters, every single one of whom feels too real to be fictional, too true.
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