2024 romantic comic fantasy. Caroline is trying to write an
enemies-to-lovers fantasy story, but her heroine Lady Rosamund keeps
objecting.
I know Bearup as a YouTuber, where she talks about the
practicalities of sword-fighting and where this book had its genesis.
The essential tension is between Caroline's desire to write
smouldering looks and clichéd scenes of her protagonists hating each
other so they must be in love, and Rosamund's desires to keep her
children and her lands safe and to mourn her late husband.
"I had such a beautiful evening planned. Candlelight, dancing, maybe
a few flirtatious threats. And what do I get? Grand Theft Equine."
All right, that is basically the major plot driver for the whole book,
but it isn't over-long, and there are plenty of side notes (like
Caroline taking lessons from Lady Rosamund into her real life, and
Rosamund picking up what were clearly intended to be one-off details
and working out their political implications). These are all
interesting people with whom to spend time.
"How many knives do you routinely carry on your person?" said
Caroline, incredulous.
"Clearly not enough!" Rosamund panted, and kept running.
Sometimes the structures don't entirely hold together (such as some of
Caroline's distractions in the "real world") and there are moments of
clumsiness, but overall I enjoyed this greatly. It's not The Interior
Life, but then what is?