2024 epistolary fantastic romance, third of its series. Isabelle de
Tourzin is not going to make the mistake of falling in love with a
mortal again. Forestier is just a useful ally.
The events of this book overlap with those in earlier volumes in
the series. The main villain is Malbosc again; it seems that cutting
his head off really didn't finish the job.
Meanwhile Forestier, the police agent seen in passing in the earlier
books, has his own reason for robbing Malbosc, and he and Isabelle run
into each other repeatedly. As with the other books, while there's
adventure going on, what's really most important is the relationship
between the principals; the ending is not when Malbosc is finally
defeated, but when they have worked out how they will deal with each
other into the future.
In fact, there's much more about who these people are, and why they
have ended up in the present situation, than there is procedural
hunting for clues and working out what's going on. That's an unusual
balance in the things I read, but a welcome one. Probably the
strongest part of the book is a journey by coach in pursuit of
Malbosc, during which the protagonists are getting to know each other
while not even being able to speak privately.
There are connections and references, and certainly one shouldn't read
this without having read the other books. There's a fair bit of sex,
perhaps not as much as before, and again conventional gender concepts
are not so much subverted as ignored.
Isabelle was always the character of these books I found most
interesting—she came into the present day already strange, rather than
being made strange by contemporary events—and I was very pleased to
get half a book in her own voice, frankly bored with these children's
antics but at the same time not entirely sure that she has all the
answers for herself.