2018 fantasy novella, side story in the Harwood Spellbook series.
Before the events of the novels, Amy Standish is a rising young
pollitician who must marry a magician to gain rank in the Boudiccate.
But Jonathan Harwood, resolutely non-magical, remains her temptation…
Amy is mostly a supporting character in the novels, so it's good
to see her get centre stage here; she's not just there for her future
sister-in-law to fall back on, she has hard decisions of her own to
make, and while there's no tension about what she'll decide (even if
you haven't read the novels, this is romantic fantasy) there is some
doubt about how she will do it, and indeed how she will come to
terms with what she's giving up for true love.
All right, even in this female-dominated society there seem to be an
awful lot of men telling women what they can't do; all right, it isn't
meant to be a utopia. Still, for the most part this is frothy and
enjoyable, but at the same time with hard decisions and serious peril.
I think the main reason I keep coming back to Burgis is her mastery of
this kind of tonal shift.
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