Review: Mortal Follies, by Alexis Hall

It is the year 1814 and Miss Maelys Mitchelmore finds her entry into the highest society of Bath hindered by an irritating curse. It begins innocuously enough, with her dress slowly unmaking itself over the course of an evening at the ball of the season, a scandal she only narrowly manages to escape. However, as the curse progresses to more fatal proportions, she realises she must seek out urgent assistance, even if that means mixing with the most undesirable company-and there are few less desirable allies than the brooding Lady Georgiana Landrake-who may or may not have murdered her own father and brothers to inherit their fortune. If one is to believe the gossip, she might be some kind of malign enchantress. Then again, a malign enchantress might be exactly what Miss Mitchelmore needs.

"A woman who lifts her own curses is a witch". Alexis Hall's Mortal Follies is a queer Regency romance with an unexpected narrator that I personally loved: Puck, or Robin, straight from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Forced to stay in the mortal world due to a transgression, Robin chooses to pay the bills by writing books about the many things he saw happen over his long life, and his narration constatly breaks the fourth wall in hilarious ways.

So we follow Maelys as she struggles against a curse set on her by a mysterious foe, and as she meets the devilish duke Georgiana and decides to put her faith in the mysterious witch. We meet witches, goblins, nymphs, and a goddess, as Maelys races against time to find a solution before she winds up dead or worse. All the while, Maelys cannot help feeling from the start a strong attraction to the duke, and their back-and-forth is exquisite.

In addition to the duke, Maelys has assistance from her cousin, a gentleman who loves other gentlemen, often the voice of reason, and from her best friend, an ingenue with hidden depths, who is enthusiastic and full of life and launches herself at things. The trio's banter is hilarious, but there's also more serious moments. I'm also in love with the prose, filled with conventions and turns of phrase of the time as the author satirises the genre - with many gentle jabs at classics - while also crafting an excellent romance.

The fantastical elements are well-woven into the tale, with two different curses coming into play and a clever denouement that definitely seems to set up for a sequel or a series. I'd give my firstborn for another book narrated by Robin.

Mortal Follies is a delightful romance with a unique voice.

✨ 4 stars

Snippet: Babel, by R.F. Kuang

 

1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. The tower and its students are the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver-working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as the arcane craft serves the Empire's quest for colonization.
For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide: can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?

"There are no kind masters". R.F. Kuang's Babel, or the Necessity of Violence: an Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution is a bleak and tragic tale about racism and colonialism. It's a hard read, it doesn't mince words, and it's a tragedy in the truest sense of the word. It's also a beautiful exploration of languages and philology, and a love letter to the act of translation, which powers magic in this world. It's an alternate history that draws on very real and terrible things, like the opium trade. It deserves to be on this blog because of the unspoken and unresolved attraction between the two male main characters, but I wouldn't recommend reading it merely because of the evanescent queer content. It is a phenomenal tale, though, and one I think everyone should read.

✨ 5 stars

Review: Witch King, by Martha Wells

 

After being murdered, his consciousness dormant and unaware of the passing of time while confined in an elaborate water trap, Kai wakes to find a lesser mage attempting to harness Kai’s magic to his own advantage. That was never going to go well. But why was Kai imprisoned in the first place? What has changed in the world since his assassination? And why does the Rising World Coalition appear to be growing in influence?
Kai will need to pull his allies close and draw on all his pain magic if he is to answer even the least of these questions. He’s not going to like the answers.

"Don’t let everything we fought for be for nothing". Martha Wells' Witch King is a standalone novel which alternates between two timelines: on the one set in the past, we follow the body-hopping demon Kai as he joins a revolution and possibly finds himself some love in one of his partners, a noble. The other timeline follows the present as he wakes up from being imprisoned and tries to understand what's happening while saving his friends, among which there are a witch who controls the winds, and her kidnapped wife.

The world-building is pretty intricate and layered; the information isn't spoon-fed, but the reader is immersed in the world with no kind of hand-holding, trusted to gather all relevant information. Not everything is explained, but there's enough to go by and have a sense of the world. The magic system seems fascinating and complex and there's a lot of interesting things going on. It's a solid fantasy adventure with a dash of mystery.

But it feels a bit like soulless homework. Everything goes like clockwork and we have many moving parts and many characters and it's clever, but it lacks heart. We're told that it's a found family story and we see the characters as they met, a human lifetime ago, and as they're in the present, but there's a sort of disconnect. The witch and her wife are never shown together in the present, not even for a small reunion, and in general the ending was pretty rushed after there was so much focus on everything that was happening.

The better-developed relationship was the one between Kai and the noble Bashasa. You get the sense that there's a growing affection, and in the present Bashasa is often on Kai's mind. There's more nuance there, more than with Kai's friendship with the witch Ziede, which is still the one that gets more screentime despite this. And I get it; it's a bit of a historical mystery, inside the novel, whether Bashasa and his demon were in a relationship, and we're left with that question too. But the rest of the cast falls flat despite the numerous quips.

Witch King is a solid fantasy novel for fans of Martha Wells.

✨ 3.5 stars

Review: To Shape a Dragon's Breath, by Moniquill Blackgoose

The remote island of Masquapaug has not seen a dragon in many generations—until fifteen-year-old Anequs finds a dragon’s egg and bonds with its hatchling. Her people are delighted, for all remember the tales of the days when dragons lived among them and danced away the storms of autumn, enabling the people to thrive. To them, Anequs is revered as Nampeshiweisit—a person in a unique relationship with a dragon. Unfortunately for Anequs, the Anglish conquerors of her land have different opinions. They have a very specific idea of how a dragon should be raised, and who should be doing the raising—and Anequs does not meet any of their requirements. Only with great reluctance do they allow Anequs to enroll in a proper Anglish dragon school on the mainland. If she cannot succeed there, her dragon will be killed.
For a girl with no formal schooling, a non-Anglish upbringing, and a very different understanding of the history of her land, challenges abound—both socially and academically. But Anequs is smart, determined, and resolved to learn what she needs to help her dragon, even if it means teaching herself. The one thing she refuses to do, however, is become the meek Anglish miss that everyone expects. Anequs and her dragon may be coming of age, but they’re also coming to power, and that brings an important realization: the world needs changing—and they might just be the ones to do it.

"All I've ever tried to do is the right thing". Moniquill Blackgoose's To Shape a Dragon's Breath is a stunning YA debut, a massive fantasy novel that takes its time to explore its world and has very poignant things to say about colonialism and racism. The writing is simple but sharp; the bare bones are those of your typical boarding school book, but the author does very interesting things with it despite the format being very repetitive.

We follow Anequs' first year of training as she struggles against a world so different from her own, against systemic racism and a deeply flawed society. She's a strong protagonist and doesn't shy away from making it known that she won't adhere to the colonizer's worldview, and she won't be a domesticated "nackie" (Native). She's also smart, and it was a delight to see her thrive academically and turn out to be a far better teacher than one of her Professors. The plot in this installment is pretty straightforward, laying the groundwork for the rest of the series, which promises to be explosive.

The world-building is impeccable, vivid and lush. It's kind of an alternate history, where the Vikings colonized America and their beliefs weren't wiped out by Christianity. They kept their gods and their customs (like the holmgang) and they push them onto the lands they colonize. On the other hand, it's a society on the cusp of the Industrial Revolution, with a steampunk flare, and a staggering set of rules about polite behavior. The dragons are a joy, with many different species all different from each other; in order to being able to shape a dragon's breath, a rider needs to master a wide array of subjects. And so the book has a strong focus on mathematics and chemistry, with complex concepts being explained in great detail.

This book features the first steps towards a polyamorous relationship. Anequa is bisexual, and she's interested in pursuing a relationship with both a man and a woman. This is normal in her society, but the Anglish are a queerphobic people and this has stopped Anequs from actively pursuing the relationship with the woman, or to start a proper conversation between all three of them. There's also a side wlw relationship that might take some spotlight in the coming books.

To Shape a Dragon's Breath is a YA novel that's perfectly enjoyable by adults.

✨ 4 stars

List: Most Anticipated Books of 2023 - July to December

In January I posted a list of my most anticipated books for the first part of the year. Now's the time to post a list for the second half of the year!

In order of publication:

Publication date: August 22, 2023

HERE you can find the Goodreads page.

Publication date: August 22, 2023

HERE you can find the Goodreads page.

Publication date: August 22, 2023

HERE you can find the Goodreads page.

Publication date: September 12, 2023

HERE you can find the Goodreads page.

Publication date: December 5, 2023

HERE you can find the Goodreads page.