2014 Ruritanian fantasy-romance, second of its series. Antuniet
Chazillen left the country after her brother was executed for treason,
but someone's after her and she's run out of places to flee. Jeanne de
Cherdillac is a scandalous widow and social butterfly.
But this is a fantasy-romance, not a historical romance, and the
magic is much more important here: Antuniet is an alchemist, and she
is determined to restore her family name by presenting a Great Work to
the princess. And that's what I love about these books: yes, there is
romance, and yes, there is magic, but social reputation and politics
are at least as important; that's what's driving Antuniet more than
anything else. There are two princesses, and each of them has a son
who might be chosen as the new ruler of the country when they come of
age, and many things depend on getting the favour of one or the other
of them.
Also, Barbara and Margerit return in this bookânot as the main
characters, but they get nearly as much time as this book's new
couple. In effect this is a four-viewpoint book, but rather than
commit the traditional error of having separate stories (all right,
not always an error, but often frustrating to the reader as one waits
to get back to the more interesting narrative thread) we get a
different slant onto the same core plot and its progression.
The next time I run a fantasy game with politics, this is the model
I'm going to use. It's not that the princess sends you off to kill
someone, it's that she's worried about the political sensibilities of
her son's tutor and asks you to look into it, but merely going to the
sort of place where a tutor might hang around requires some
arrangements so as not to compromise your own tenuous status. And once
you've done a few things like that, people reckon you're one of her
partisans, and start to try to use you to get to her.
And in among all that there's the romance, of Jeanne who lives for
socialising, and Antuniet who, even once she starts to get invitations
again, is tired by it and would rather get back to the workshop.
There's a genuine tension here and I'm glad to say that neither of
them has to end up compromising themselves the way I've seen in some
modern romances.
All thoroughly good stuff, in fact, and recommended.