2019 romantic fantasy, third of its loose series. Proserpina Gates,
widowed bookseller, is helping a client find a rumoured Roman treasure
on her land. Ibis Ward is the scholar she engages to assist with the
research…
This is a book with an odd arc. It starts off with Pross and Ibis
meeting, realising they have bigger problems than a research puzzle,
and so deciding that while they are certainly attracted to each other
they aren't going to be hopping into bed just yet… and then everything
except the romance gradually fades into the background. Yes, that's
fine, but I do actually want to know what fascinating item was in the
hoard, not just that it was found and everything was all right. I
mean, you don't even tell me whether all that work about which god it
might be associated with paid off!
So perhaps call it fantastic romance rather than the romantic fantasy
you might get from say Mercedes Lackey in her Elemental Masters
series. Much more attention goes to how Pross will tell her daughter
that this man will be entering their lives than to what she learns
about ancient treasure caches. Someone who's been a nuisance gets
handed over to the Guard (the magical world's police) and nobody seems
to care about just who's been paying him to do it, even as they're
working to unravel a conspiracy that turns out to be more about
laziness and self-interest than for anything more productive. I do
like the way that there are actually trustworthy law enforcers and
they can do the dangerous stuff that's their job, but at the same time
it can feel anticlimactic.
I liked the people, but I could have done with less elision of the
actual plot.
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