This was cute! I’m not sure it was cute enough for me to pursue the sequel books, but it was a pleasant light read.

The characters are likeable enough, although I felt that the author misjudged how many times

Grace

could betray someone without it draining a bit of their likability. I didn’t feel like we were seeing enough of any of them to really get attached, either. The main character gets the most development, but the fact that I have immediately forgotten his name upon finishing is a bad sign. Tristan is an archetype I find enjoyable, but Witchmark’s not the best rendition of it I’ve seen, and the intriguing hints of him having hidden problems lurking in the book’s equivalent of faerie land don’t get resolved here. In fact,

the main character agrees to marry him before they even talk about it.

Which is just one way in which it felt like the romance as well as the book in general was on a speedrun to an unearned happy conclusion. Characters do go through development, but it often feels like it’s because they must hit those notes in their character arcs, rather than because something has happened organically.

There’s an uncomfortable bent to the way the book handles its war on an neighbouring land, too. It does at least seem aware that colonization is bad, but that doesn’t stop the soldiers from being called “heroes” and people who “should be heroes,” both by characters and the narrative. The nods at pacifistic worldviews rarely include a discussion of how the Laneeri have been harmed. In fact, it wasn’t often clear whether the book thought that was the biggest problem, or the fact that the Aeland soldiers sent to war were traumatized. And of course it is people from this other land who get no dialogue, unless you count mad cackling; who use incense and necromancy and have “sky-priests” while the main characters remain somewhere recognizable as England even though it’s never called that. Who have no technology we learn of, unlike this not-England, and who are the only ones mentioned to use torture against POWs during the war and have no rules against harming civilians, including children. In the plot they’ve been wronged, but subtextually they’re framed as villains and terrifying, mysterious forces of violence. I’m not sure the book going And War Is Bad really made up for that. It feels thoughtless rather than deliberate, but doesn’t stop it from being uncomfortable and irritating.

I’ll admit I was going into this book expecting rather a lot, so perhaps I held it to an unfair standard. It was fun, and it did make for a good read on the plane. But I also felt nothing during its big dramatic conclusion. I’m not asking that every work be full of complication and moral complexity, but I need a bit more than this.

Overall, this book was a good time, though by no means perfect. The writing style was clear and flowed easily, and I liked most of the characters. The world-building seemed well-thought-out, but not explored as much as I would have liked. 

One issue I had with this book was that it kept the reader in the dark about certain things for too long to really have a sense of what to care about. I also felt that the ending was extremely rushed, and I wish that Tristan had had more development. He was absent too often and when he was present, he didn't have much agency in the story, which dampened the romance for me.

That said, this was still a fun, magical story with a cute queer romance, and I'm glad I read it.

Well that was a good read. Flew by. Got a somewhat lighter Nk Jemison vibe. 

I always feel bad about not finishing an undersung and much beloved title, and I feel worse here because it came recommended to me as part of a 12 Friends, 12 Books reading challenge. However, I would feel worse about leaving a lackluster rating that affected the overall average in even a marginal way.

I *need* SFF authors, even the ones given less editing and marketing help, to work on this issue of dumping us into story with little or no world-building. I get this flies in the face of conventional writing wisdom, but SFF is a unique genre that needs that work done desperately if you want your reader to understand stakes, which I really didn’t here. Too much was happening, and I wasn’t sure why or why I should care.