2021 romantic fantasy. In 1922, Rathna is sent to look into a
transportation portal that's shut down; she's very specialised in her
understanding of portals, so an expert in other magics is sent to help
her out.
It's the Lake recipe as before: some mild peril, but much more on
an emotional than on a physical level. Our heroes gradually work out
what's going on, and move from spiky distrust into love. When it comes
time to catch the malefactor(s), that job is given to the Guard, and
resolved off-page.
It's the characters who are the prizes for me. Rathna is the daughter
of an ayah who was brought back from Bengal by a British family, then
turned out when her services were no longer needed. Although this is a
less racist (and sexist) world than our own, society still makes
things harder for her than necessary. Meanwhile Gabe Edgarton is the
heir of an important family, who has a real talent for magical
investigation, but has to spend much of his time resisting people who
want him to give up that nonsense and get on with being a normal
aristocrat.
It's pleasing to see more consideration of the portals (and indeed one
recurring theme is why anyone would put one in Glencoe in the first
place), and I enjoyed my return to Lake's Albion.