Book Review: Enchanting the Fae Queen by Stephanie Burgis

The second of the Queens of Villainy series

Second in her fantasy series “The Queens of Villainy,” Enchanting the Fae Queen continues Stephanie Burgis' series set in a world of magic and some technology. While I have read other works by her before, I decided to jump in feet first into book two of this series, although I do own, unread, book one, Wooing the Witch Queen.

After reading a rather dark book, I wanted to go for something lighter. And so I found myself picking up what is, in fact, a romantasy in name¹ as well. And I want to talk about that for a moment before I even get to the book itself. Romantasy has, retroactively, been seen to being going back at least to Emma Bull’s War for the Oaks², But as far as I can tell, Romantasy became a thing in the early 2010’s with authors like Sarah J Maas. But in recent years, especially it seems in the age of Covid, that it has been pushed and expanded as a comfort read, and authors either squeezed into it or marketed as such.

I’ve read a lot of fantasy in my life, and what is now being seen as Romantasy, ex post facto, and what I have seen is that Romantasy is the rising trend in fantasy. I've talked about Grimdark in the past, which was the reigning ruler of fantasy for quite a while. And even now, there is still a lot of Grimdark out there.  But the new but not so new hotness is Romantasy.  Many of the secondary world fantasy books I am offered these days are pitched as Romantasy. Right or wrong, Romantasy is perceived as the rising subgenre. I myself have tried a couple of Romantasy books and bounced off all of them. The irony is that Romantasy has been pitched and shown often as a comfortable subgenre, a subgenre one reads for pleasure and immersion in the story of a relationship. But I'd to this point failed to really enjoy it.

And so we come to Enchanting the Fae Queen.

In some ways, this was also a challenge as well as a reach for something lighter. What would jumping into book two of a Romantasy series be like? Could it hold up for me as a reader of fantasy? Could I actually "get" Romantasy as a subgenre? I decided to go deliberately outside my comfort zone, even if it is ostensibly to a "comfort subgenre".  I knew the basic setup of the Queens of Villainy verse but was scant on the details. Could a second novel in a Romantasy series hold me? And so, not well armed at all, I went in.

Enchanting the Fae Queen features one of the soi-disant Queens of Villainy, Queen Lorelei. Originally from Faerie, she rules one of the three realms that border a human and very dangerous empire run by Emperor Otto. Otto is a young and dangerous empire running an empire that, from context feels vaguely mid to late 19th century. There seems to be a mixture of both German and French influences to this Empire Trains are relatively new, there are gas lamps, but technology has not progressed any further. Otto himself feels like a Kaiser Wilhelm II, young, impetuous, expansionistic, with a helping of intolerance that is both medieval and, sadly, positively modern.

Lorelei herself is the Queen of a Kingdom on the borders of this hungry hungry Empire, but the novel’s focus, as a Romantasy is on the relationship between her and General de Moireul of the Empire. They’ve had entanglements for years, but, now, as the Empire is rearing up yet again to try and make war on the Queens, Lorelei proves impetuous. She kidnaps Gerard and in the process launches them into a tournament in Faerie. Faerie has changed since the time she was once there, and Lorelei and Gerard not only have to work together, but something else, not only to even possibly win the tournament, not even to stop a war neither want, but just to survive. And, find a connection, together.

And thus a story unfolds.

As mentioned above, Romantasy’s conventions and focus are on the development of relationships, particularly romantic ones. As a result, I was left with a lot of questions about the worldbuilding that I do not think that the first book, Wooing the Witch Queen, address, either. That’s not what the book really is focused on, or what the book is for.

I did try to read the book with the protocols of a fantasy novel, and I did find that to be a somewhat frustrating experience. Even given that I came into the middle of a series, I was left with a lot of questions about how the world works that seemed to be not answered, or at least not really the concern of the writer. The use of magic, especially Fae magic, mind, and a secondary fantasy world kept the novel firmly in the realm of being fantasy, even if the protocols didn’t always quite fit. To give one telling point: This is a secondary fantasy world, but one whose geography is rather vaguely described and there is, indeed, no map.³ Now, mind you, in a world where portal magic among the Queens is not uncommon, the Empire itself doesn’t seem to have much of this.

But how does it read, overall, protocols aside for a moment? Burgis has a warm and inviting style to her writing. Yes, it is character focused, more in a moment about that. Burgis has a number of speeds of her writing, directing the writing and its flow to keep the reader engaged and turning pages. She narrows down nicely into details, especially how the characters are feeling and acting, during some trials, and handwaves and telescopes others once we get the point of what is going on and how the trials are proceeding. She uses mainly Lorelei as our point of view, although she also briefly brings us into other points of view as well. Burgis has honed her style to be very readable. I hesitate to use the word light, because Burgis is serious about developing her characters and relationships. She has a softer touch on worldbuilding and plot, but when it comes to writing characters, this is where her writing truly shines.

But back to protocols and focusing on those characters and relationships. It is reading the book with the protocols of a romance novel that one can better judge the novel’s merits. And on those merits the novel succeeded for me on much stronger ground. The development of the Lorelei-Gerard relationship is the backbone and superstructure of the novel and the story proceeds on familiar lines, and executed excellently. It’s the classic enemies to lovers trope, although Lorelei has had a thing for Gerard, opponent as he might be, for quite some time. Both of them, though, have strongly guarded and hardened hearts. Lorelei is self-described as a rake, an enthusiastic lover, but one who does not give her own heart in the process. She has and does cut a swath across the landscape and is known to do so. Gerard on the other hand has never given his heart to anyone. He is so focused on his job, his duty, his honor, that he has never found the place in his heart for another. Especially not the Fae Queen who has tormented him with tricks and gambits for years.

But, in the course of the aforementioned Tournament that the two find themselves in, the two’s relationship slowly starts to develop. It follows a slowly pattern of the two falling for each other, despite themselves, in a rising and falling pattern, with setbacks, declarations, finally getting together, and of course, in the end, the setback and finally the HEA (Happily Ever After).

The innovation, such as it is with a Romantasy like the Queens of Villainy series is that this happens in a fantasy verse. And yes, while Romance is the better frame and protocol with which to understand most Romantasy novels such as this series, the protocol of fantasy and the overall fantastic plot still applies and has to be accounted for. The first book in the series, Wooing the Witch Queen, is an HEA, but the characters are still here in the second book, and are secondary characters to the overall plot. The fantasy world and its problems still go on, the Empire is still out there, and in this second book, Otto and his plans are, I gather, have darkened since the first book.

What this all means is that the third and final book, Melting the Ice Queen, is going to complete the trilogy and resolve the fantasy plot. But, like the first novel’s relationship is clearly in an HEA and remains so, this novel and the Lorelei-Gerard relationship will remain stable and be nurtured, even as the third novel focuses on a new one, with the third Queen of Villainy. That relationship promises to be a queer one. I do want to mention that while this world seems queer-friendly, it will only be in the third novel that we get a queer relationship forward and featured. From what I understand, in Romantasy, queer relationships are rather in the minority at present. Perhaps Burgis’ third novel and the culmination of the Queens of Villainy series will help balance that. Romantasy, I feel, like any genre or subgenre, should be diverse. It is important for it to be so.

One more point. The title. The title of this novel, and indeed the titles of all three novels, are focused on the MC woman partner. Wooing the Witch Queen. Enchanting the Fae Queen. Melting the Ice Queen. The woman-focused and female MC focused main character titling is showing the importance of providing such framing for female readers. This series would be very different in outward appearance if they were identical inside but rather they were titled Wooing the Archduke and Enchanting the General. Although, as noted above, the third novel’s retitling would be something like Melting the Ice Priestess.

It would appear I have much to learn about reading the protocols of Romantasy, and writers like Burgis, whom I have read before, but in this age of Romantasy, are finding a home and receptive audience for the stories they want to tell.

--

Highlights

• Romantasy, second in a series. 
• Strong character beats
• Well written, engaging and entertaining 

Reference: Burgis, Stephanie, Enchanting the Fae Queen (Bramble, 2026)

¹ It is pretty clear that although Romantasy is a new term, previous works by Stephanie Burgis, such as Snowspelled, are, retrospectively, definitely Romantasy as well.

² Of course, I had thought that War for the Oaks was a progenitor of modern Urban Fantasy, which goes to show that categories have overlap, as well as the fact that there are books that subgenres desperately want to “claim” for their own.

³ Yes, I realize not every fantasy world has a map or even needs a map. And there are Romantasy novels with gorgeous maps. But we get to the protocols again, and how to read this book. And I think, although it is coming here in a footnote, that to read Romantasy, one MUST read and accept the fusion of both protocols and that not all the check boxes are going to be checked.  Or perhaps Romantasy is a spectrum, with more or less elements of fantasy and romance between various novels, authors and series. Or is Romantasy, like I sometimes think of Horror, more of a mode or color and not a subgenre at all? Is it a polder, a boundary land?  I am sure people with far more credentials than I are going to explore this in coming years, and it should. 

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.

Cool Books I Read While I Was Too Sad to Review

If a review copy lands in the inbox when the reviewer is too overwhelmed to read it, does it even get a review?

Well, no, obviously it doesn't. Despite my fervent hopes, the review fairy did not visit me once while I was having a Big Bad 2023 to magic away my Netgalley obligations and show love to books during my period of chronic distraction. But the books continued to be good, and I'm going to cover some of them here in not-even-nano-sized review chunks.

Case in point: The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera was a 2023 highlight. I've seen a lot of deservedly flattering comps for this novel, a story of divine destiny denied set in a fantasy Sri Lanka:  my own mind was drawn to Sofia Samatar and Ursula K. Le Guin while reading, with a few of the bleak vibes I last felt in A.K. Larkwood's The Unspoken Name. For a story that really invites comparisons, however, Saint of Bright Doors is very much making its own mark on modern genre - and I'm sure there are plenty of threads of Sri Lankan and wider South Asian influence that I missed entirely.

Highlights of the reading experience for me included the way the story's geography seems to literally rearrange itself around the absurd authoritarianism of Luriat's state politics, the portrayal of gods and unknowable supernatural forces co-existing with a mundane, modern setting, and the greatest first person pronoun drop in genre history. This is an essential novel and I hope we'll be talking about it for years to come.

Translation State by Ann Leckie was a novel I hoped to feel similarly about. This latest standalone-ish instalment in Leckie's Imperial Radch universe is a solid, thought provoking piece of SF (Clara has some excellent provoked thoughts here) but it hasn't withstood the test of time as a standout novel for me, Don't get me wrong, I love the Presger translators, and I highly appreciated the way Leckie gives us crumbs of further context without really making anything clearer about the setting's most mysterious alien race. Less attractive on reflection is the treatment of alien biological urges as fundamentally irresistible in a way that would simply not make sense if the author were talking about humans. Protagonists Reet and Qven are, for different reasons, terrified of the urges of their alien heritage, but all Presger translators simply have to go through "puberty" in the way their creators designed, so oh well, suck it up kids, they'll be fine once it's done. 

I understand the narrative is setting up questions about personhood in general, not creating any deliberate queer parallels, but gender is so integral to the setting as a whole, and aliens so often used as a stand-in for human queerness (and neurodivergence) that it's hard not to think about Qven and Reet's lack of choice through that lens. It would be nice to see stories that think more about how alien queerness would manifest, from the starting assumption that of course it would manifest in any sentient species, but I'll keep searching for those books elsewhere. In the meantime, any Imperial Radch is good Imperial Radch, but this one didn't hit "great" for me.

Joe and I share a love of Seanan McGuire's October Daye series, and while he does the honours of the full Nerds of a Feather reviews, I also found time for both of last year's double-Toby entries, Sleep No More and The Innocent Sleep. These are the 17th and 18th books in the series respectively, and they effectively act as companion novels to each other: Sleep No More follows series protagonist October - a fae changeling - as she grapples with the effects of a reality-altering mass illusion, while The Innocent Sleep breaks with series tradition to focus on her Cait Sidhe husband Tybalt, who is working against the illusion from the outside. The actual points of narrative overlap didn't set my world on fire (In one book, October thinks Tybalt looks angry! In the next book, we learn Tybalt is angry!), but the double-bill allows McGuire to let loose with the most unsavoury conventions and darkest corners of fae society in a way that brings the series full circle to its earliest vibes. There's also more time across the books to feature a wide set of supporting characters - including one unexpectedly sympathetic "recast" - who demonstrate the breadth of the series' worldbuilding. As always, I'm eager for more.

Let's talk about some more underrated series! Claws and Contrivances is the second in Stephanie Burgis' Regency Dragons romances and it's just as delightful as the first: an intricate and often hilarious plot of misunderstandings and reversals, sprinkled with fun dragon naturalism and centred around a young protagonist with a lot to learn and a LOT of willing accomplices to her various schemes. Unlike the first book in the series, Scales and Sensibility, Claws and Contrivances takes place in a fundamentally loving family environment where queerness and difference are accepted, and it's the perfect backdrop for Rose Tregarth and her nerdy, autistic-coded love interest Aubrey to fall for each other.

Furious Heaven by Kate Elliott is anything but light, both in content and in physical weight. As Paul covered in detail, this is a 750 page chonk retelling events from the life of Alexander the Great, except Alexander is now Princess Sun, daughter of Eirene of Chaonia, an expanding galactic power rubbing up against the much larger might of the Phene while trying to maintain their own powers at home. If you know the history of Alexander the Great, you'll probably recognise more moments from real history, but it's certainly not necessary to enjoy the combination of pew-pew space battles, irreverent epithet-laden narration, "oh no she DIDN'T" politicking, and silly teenagers with entirely too much power. Go look up the facts afterwards to find out which bits really happened (no genetically modified four-armed people in antiquity, unfortunately), and get some knowledge useful for pub quiz as a bonus!

Adri, Nerds of a Feather co-editor, is a semi-aquatic migratory mammal most often found in the UK. She has many opinions about SFF books, and is also partial to gaming, baking, interacting with dogs, and Asian-style karaoke. Find her on Bluesky at adrijjy.bsky.social.

Nanoreviews: Scales and Sensibility, The Bone Shard Emperor, Velvet Was the Night

 

Scales and Sensibility by Stephanie Burgis

This highly entertaining regency romance kicks off a new trilogy in a new world for Burgis, and it's very like our own but for the recent "discovery" (as far as Western society is concerned) of dragons. Said dragons have led to some intriguing new research directions, but mostly their presence in English society is as a trainable pet status symbol for wealthy ladies, and as poor cousin in a house of awful rich relatives, Elinor Tregarth has to look on as her nasty cousin Penelope Hathergill tries to train hers in time for her coming out ball in a week's time. Unfortunately, while Elinor thinks of herself as a sensible, patient sort, and has put up with a lot at Penelope's hands, watching animal abuse turns out to be her limit, and she ends up running away from the house with poor Sir Jessamyn in tow, only to bump into a charming fortune hunter on his way to her a cousin, spend a night getting to know him (in a very proper sense!) in the local inn, and then accidentally triggering Sir Jessamyn's secret magic to transform herself into fearsome socialite Mrs DeLacey, whose strength and courage Elinor wishes she had. Penniless and stuck in another woman's body, Elinor decides her best hope of survival is to accompany charming Benedict Hawkins back to her aunt and uncle's house, and pose as Mrs DeLacey come to help Penelope's debut while helping Benedict with his seduction plan and figuring out her own next move.

Scales and Sensibility absolutely delights in its farcical set-up and all the opportunities for misunderstanding, misdirection, slip-ups and drama it creates: there's barely a chapter that goes by without a terrible coincidence occurring in the final sentences, and Elinor is constantly pulled between trying to maintain her disguise (which slips if anyone physically touches her, and is made more complicated by the fact that her dragon looks exactly like the stolen one except for a few magical facial markings), keep Sir Jessamyn out of harm's way, keep Benedict Hawkins ahead of Penelope's other, wealthier suitor and his conniving sister, squash her own feelings for Benedict Hawkins, try and figure out what's going on with her dragon with the help of Benedict's quiet dragon-scholar friend. In-keeping with the Austen homage (Elinor Dashwood is the "sensible" sister from Sense and Sensibility), Elinor Tregarth thinks of herself as a sensible, steady, boring sort of person, but there's not much space in this story for "sensible" decisions, and Elinor is at her best when she's throwing caution to the wind and really inhabiting the persona she's built up as Mrs DeLacey: a no-nonsense, daring, strong-willed woman who won't hesitate to speak her mind even when other people are against her. The romance is great - and well handled alongside the hidden identities - and the ending does well to reward to all the characters we're rooting for while avoiding too much punitive nastiness against those we weren't. And, if my assumptions about the romantic lead in the next book are correct... well, let's just say I can't wait.

The Bone Shard Emperor

The Bone Shard Daughter was a really entertaining fantasy debut, creating an intriguing archipelago ruled by an insular emperor who maintained power through constructs powered by magical shards of bone from living people. While it had a number of engaging points of view - Jovis, the smuggler with a heart of gold who adopts a magical otter-kitten-pet, was a firm favourite - the heartbeat of the book was with Lin Sukai, daughter of the emperor who is struggling  to cope with mysterious memory loss and pass her father's increasingly bizarre tests while putting her own plans into motion to move the succession along and come out ahead of her rival. Lin's story centred around the workings of bone shard magic, which is essentially a form of blood-magic coding which creates more or less complex automatons that run on the life force of the people whose shards are used. Lin's story was full of unique magic and tense twists, and at the point where The Bone Shard Daughter ends, it left her teamed up with Jovis, ascending the throne, and unable in good conscience to continue using the magic that had defined the series to this point.

That puts Bone Shard Emperor in an interesting narrative position, but luckily there's plenty of other interesting elements seeded throughout Bone Shard Daughter that come to the fore here. Stuck leading an empire that has no idea who she is and only tolerates the power of the Emperor as far as it offers magical protection (which it doesn't), Lin needs to consolidate her power while trying to stay true to her own ideals, seeing off independence grabs from the islands and the machinations of the revolutionary force trying to unseat her while seeing off the invasion of a rogue construct group (who will be very familiar to readers of book one). Jovis, and his magical kitten-otter (actually an ossalen, now very big and very talkative, and still the best character) is now working alongside Lin, but with conflicted loyalties and ghosts from his past to deal with. Meanwhile, islands keep sinking and the looming supernatural threat - the rise of the Alanga, a magical race that the Sukai dynasty claimed to be able to hold at bay - seems to be much closer than expected. Lin and Jovis' travel gives the opportunity to see more of the empire and the worldbuilding here continues to be top notch, especially around the various factions vying for power around the new emperor.

There are also some elements that don't work as well. The secondary storyline with Phalue, governor of one of the islands, and her wife Ranami, is entertaining but still feels quite distant from the primary storyline, and its independent payoffs felt even more limited despite their actually meeting with Jovis and Lin this time. that said, Phalue and Ranami's story adds more depth to life on the islands, and I'm invested in how the two come through as a couple, and I am very excited to see more of Ayesh, their orphan-adoptee, in the next book - so perhaps I'm just out of practice with parallel stories in this kind of fantasy storytelling. There is also a romantic connection between Jovis and Lin that doesn't have much time to incubate before bursting out as a "every time they accidentally touch we get sentences about how a-flutter they are" type deal. There are elements of both characters' experiences that make it more understandable why they'd fall in love so fast, but it feels uncomfortably like it happens because that is what is supposed to happen when two characters like this spend time together in this story, rather than it flowing organically. Still, those are minor elements in what's overall a very enjoyable continuation of the series.

Velvet Was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

It's been too long since I read a book with a good, ready-made soundtrack and, if you like reading to music, Velvet Was the Night pretty much demands that you put on its 60s-rock soundtrack, and will even reward you with rare moments where the music lines up with one of the many songs referenced within the text itself (for me, this happened in the "White Room" scene, to great effect). Velvet Was the Night is a noir set in Mexico City in 1970, at the beginning of the "dirty war", where government sanctioned violence against communists and other dissidents led to widespread political repression. Into that scene steps Elvis, a mid-level thug who aspires to be more than a two-bit goon even as he idolises his commander and the work they do, and Maite, a woman who spends her life fantasising about romance and building an extensive record collection. When Maite reluctantly agrees to look after her neighbour Leonora's cat, only to have Leonora disappear, she's motivated to start an investigation that soon takes on a life of its own; Elvis is also sent to pursue Leonora, while learning more about how to command his squad and learning that all is not well in the political ecosystem that keeps him employed and useful.

Velvet Was the Night is packed with atmosphere and intrigue, and while there's nothing particularly engaging about Leonora herself - she appears to be in possession of incriminating photos which have gone missing, and has left behind not one but two mooning exes, but her politics are done more interestingly by other characters - there's certainly a lot to enjoy about Maite and Elvis' respective investigations into her, and the way that their paths intertwine as they get closer to tracking down the truth. There's a frequent grimness to these happenings - as you'd expect from a noir centring the political underworld - and it's underscored by the small-mindedness of both leads: we might sympathise with Maite's singleness and how awful her family are about it, but her obsession with status and appearances and her callousness towards people she doesn't consider worth caring about (including the cat) are very unpleasant traits, and Elvis' contempt for his fellow enforcers and mooning over the cultist honeypot he fell in love with before joining the gang is equally eye-rolling. But that all adds to the atmosphere, and, again, it's that atmosphere - and the intricacy of politics behind it - that make Velvet Was the Night a fantastic noir read.

POSTED BY: Adri, Nerds of a Feather co-editor, is a semi-aquatic migratory mammal most often found in the UK. She has many opinions about SFF books, and is also partial to gaming, baking, interacting with dogs, and Asian-style karaoke. Find her on Twitter at @adrijjy

Nanoreviews: Moontangled, Into Bones like Oil, Silver in the Wood

Silver in the Wood cover art and design by David Curtis; Moontangled Cover Design by Ravven; Into Bones Like Oil Cover Art by S. Hadi Hasan

Moontangled by Stephanie Burgis [Five Fathoms Press, 2020]

Moontangled marks the fourth novella in total, and the second "side" novella, of Burgis' Harwood Spellbook series, an alt-historical regency in which women have political power, men can train as magicians, and everyone in the orbit of one Cassandra Harwood is learning there's plenty more they can do outside of those rules, even if it's not always the future they originally had in mind. Even more so than its predecessors, Moontangled is best consumed once you're familiar with the rest of the series: this is a tale that benefits from prior knowledge of Burgis' version of the fae, and of the specific history and bargains struck with the supernatural entities here. It also helps to already be familiar with Miss Fennell and Miss Banks, the recurring characters whose secret romance takes centre stage here. For Juliana Banks, self-fulfilment has always been a challenging prospect, with her interest in learning magic stymied by the lack of training available for women. For Catherine Fennell, the career that she wants had previously felt more in reach, with an Aunt grooming her to take over her seat in the ruling Bouddicate on her retirement, but part of the requirements for a political career is a marriage to a powerful magic user and, because only men have previously been trained in magic, a heterosexual marriage is still expected as the only path for advancement. Now that Juliana is being trained at the Harwood Academy, things should ideally be looking up for our queer lady protagonists, but events at the end of Thornbound have left Catherine in a significantly more precarious political position, once again throwing their future as a lesbian power couple into doubt. Throw a grand party into the mix, and an reunion for Catherine and Juliana which ticks every box for hopeless miscommunication, and you have all the ingredients for a single magical night of relationship magic, as the pair figure out what's important to them while also trying not to be kidnapped forever by the barely-tolerant fae guardian of the neighbouring forest.

All of Burgis' characters exist in some degree of opposition with the more egalitarian but restrictive roles set out for them, and the spaces in which the novellas play out underscore that sense of distance from the establishment, while playing up the close presence of various supernatural threats that rather overshadow the characters' initial concerns about their status and political futures. That the protagonists of these books remain believable in their desires, interests and motivations, even as the machinations of that side are kept at arm's length, is one of the big successes of the series, and the fae interference in Moontangled offers an unexpected angle of support to Juliana and Catherine's activities (and, eventually, reconciliation). I would love to know a little bit more about the Bouddicates one day, particularly as the quirks in the series' setup means we spend a lot more time watching women overcoming societal gender imbalances without seeing much about the restrictions and assumptions made about men as a result of this matriarchal system, but I'm equally happy to follow this series wherever it unfolds.

8/10

Into Bones like Oil by Kaaron Warren [Meerkat Press, 2019]

Content Warning: Child Death, Implied Child Abuse

Dana is the latest in a long line of washed up, damaged and out-of-luck residents who have moved into The Angelsea, a grim beachside boarding house, following the dissolution of her marriage and the loss of her two daughters. Grief stricken and unable to sleep due to her fear of being haunted by her daughters and blamed for their deaths, Dana quickly discovers that the house isn't quite what it first seems: there's rather a lot of ghosts around, for one thing, and the owner accepts payment not just in cash but in drug-induced sleep that allows the ghosts to speak through the residents. Dana's complex past unfolds alongside her first week at the Angelsea, as she becomes involved in the hunt for lost treasure, gets to know some of the residents and the circumstances that brought them to the place, and eventually begins to challenge and confront her own ghosts, even as it becomes clear that it won't be the ones she expects to hear from.

This is the second work I've read from Warren after her deeply unsettling contribution to the Creatures anthology, and while Into Bones Like Oil certainly maintains the creepiness and claustrophobia of that novelette, it feels like there's more to grip onto here, as the narrative weaves through the different facets of Angelsea's past and present, and Dana's own somewhat unreliable perspective on her own past. The gothic atmosphere here is pitch perfect, down to Dana's location in the house's old foyer (now partially sunk and in the back of the house) from which the ghosts come and go, but she cannot; and the grounding of what could quickly become a too-stereotypical otherworldly space by providing mundane details on the bathroom signs and breakfast menus, all of which make it clear that this is somewhere that people make the best of. Its main narrative is, as you'd expect from the content, pretty unpleasant and hard to read at points, but there's a sense of hope and connection that finds its way through even the awfulness of some of the Angelsea's personalities. A difficult novella, but one that's worth engaging with.

Rating: 8/10

Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh [Tor.com Publishing, 2019]

Fun fact: I read this almost back to back with Susan Cooper's Silver on the Tree, and now I constantly struggle to remember which title belongs to the culmination of the 5-book children's series and which is the first in Emily Tesh's SCKA-nominated novella duology about ancient wood magic, love, and redemption. It's definitely the latter I'm interested in talking about today: the story of Tobias Finch, once an ordinary man in love with a scoundrel, but now, hundreds of years later, a spirit magically attached to his forest, who spends his days maintaining the peace, hanging out with dryads, and maintaining a rustic lifestyle with his cat in a forgotten cottage in the middle of the wood. All is quietly boring and lowkey terrible until Henry Silver, the new owner of the land on which the forest sits, comes across Tobias' cottage in the middle of a rainstorm, and (with a narrowly avoided "only one bed" scene) starts a connection between the two that is fuelled by Silver's interest in the supernatural elements of the wood, and the darker parts of its history. Tobias, of course, has a personal connection, being hundreds of years old and a supernatural entity, and as Silver gets drawn in beyond what he expected, some old scores emerge to be resettled.

It's a fun novella, especially when it takes a turn in the second part and we meet Henry Silver's disapproving battleaxe of an aunt, who turns out to be a far more competent monster hunter than Henry himself, and while it felt like there was more to explore in the wood itself than we ultimately got to see, the relationships - especially the central connection between Silver and Tobias, which avoids any outright creepiness that might be brought on by their rather significant age gap - are entertaining and the climax, while slightly confusing and bittersweet, definitely held my interest. The sequel to this one is out later this year and I'm intrigued to see where my new favourite forest couple end up next.

Rating: 7/10

Posted by: Adri, Nerds of a Feather co-editor, is a semi-aquatic migratory mammal most often found in the UK. She has many opinions about SFF books, and is also partial to gaming, baking, interacting with dogs, and Asian-style karaoke. Find her on Twitter at @adrijjy.

Series Review: The Harwood Spellbook by Stephanie Burgis

A trio of magical, historical romances offering the most engaging, well-realised type of comfort reading.

Art by Leesha Hannigan

As winter continues its reign of terror over this part of the northern hemisphere, I've been doing my best to introduce a steady diet of comfort reading into what can become a pretty dark and dense TBR. That's why I've been so glad to finally make time for Stephanie Burgis, and particularly her Hardwood Spellbook series, an alternate historical romance set in a magical regency era reminiscent of Zen Cho, or Kate Elliott's Spiritwalker trilogy. The series currently consists of two "main" novellas - Snowspelled and the forthcoming Thornbound, as well as a shorter prequel novella, Spellswept, set fifteen years or so before the events of the main chronology, and from a different point of view, but with many of the same characters.

The focus of the series is Cassandra Harwood, a young woman born to an elite Anglish family. For 1700 years, elite men and women have maintained a balance of power by which only women can go into politics, but only men are allowed to study magic, and for families like the Harwoods, male and female children are expected to follow that most elite career path exactly. That seems limiting in a number of ways, and Cassandra's path has put her in collision with the most obvious taboo: she's a talented magician and is desperate to study magic, taking the place of her older brother, Jonathan, who is more than happy to step aside and follow his non-magical passion for history. To complicate matters further, members of the Boudiccate, the council that governs the country, must be married to a mage - which means that, despite general acceptance of same-sex relationships and the understanding that not all men can do magic, politically ambitious women must marry from a very limited group of men.

Cover by Ravven

What's fascinating about the main series - and while Spellswept is a delightful story and adds a lot to our overall understanding of Cassandra and her future sister-in-law Amy, it's worth reading after the initial introduction to the characters that Snowspelled provides - is that by the time we meet Cassandra, she's not the driven mage struggling against discrimination in her chosen path. Instead, in her own words, Cassandra is no longer "functional". Having pushed herself too hard in pursuit of securing the respect of her peers, she's burned out her own magic and is now unable to cast any spells at all. Luckily for us, this doesn't signal the end of any of her adventures, and Snowspelled and Thornbound deliver a tense pair of magically-driven mysteries: the first, set in a snowed-in house party, and the second in the Harwood's own estate next to a menacing forest. In both cases, unknown human meddling has upset the balance with their near neighbours, the elves and the fae, and it's up to Cassandra to untangle the mixture of human and fantastical motivations behind the mystery and save the day, all without a magical spell in sight.

As a reader, it's hard it is not to fixate on Cassandra's lack of magic, and how happy she - and we - would be if it returned, and to unconsciously expect that as an ending. What Burgis does so well is not to dismiss or deny that disappointment, but to make it very clear that the happy endings Cassandra and her family (including magic-school-rival-turned-fiance-turned-ex-fiance-turned-husband Wrexham) achieve are valid and satisfying even if they don't lead to undoing her past mistakes. Cassandra's response to the overwhelming hostility she has faced in achieving her ambitions has been to close herself off and attempt to achieve things on her own - even though Spellswept makes it clear that she has always had allies among her family - and each entry in the series explores that in a different way. Along the way, the story makes it abundantly clear that despite not being able to single-handedly achieve the reform she wanted by pushing through with blunt force, Cassandra there are perhaps even better ways to achieve her goal while also working with the family and allies around her. All three of these books are capital R Romance, so Cassandra's reconciliation with Wrexham and Amy's relationship with Jonathan are big elements of the "happily ever afters", but I very much enjoyed the fact that these relationships don't take total precedence over other family ties or personal goals, even if they sometimes provide more narrative fuel. Of course, the satisfaction of these endings relies on the strength of the main characters, and all three novellas benefit from a main cast who shine even when the limited space available means others are less fleshed out. Llewellyn, in Spellswept, has a particularly unfortunate time of it, though astute readers will note that it's because he's actually the worst.

Art by Leesha Hannigan

The worldbuilding of these novellas is quite focused, and there's a satisfying symmetry and an interesting power dynamic to the "women are politicians, men are mages" thing even if it might not stand up to super close scrutiny as a system of power distribution. Thornbound does add an interesting wrinkle when a character points out how many countries have a traditional patriarchal structure, which might also overturn the Boudiccate any moment if women were to give up or amend the political structure in any way. Certainly, Cassandra's struggles to be accepted as a magician feel more like someone of a marginalised gender hitting a glass ceiling than the disbelief and in-group policing (and/or appropriation) which might follow a privileged person taking on a marginalised person's social role. That's not to say that the conflict the book recounts isn't already compelling, but I do wonder if the complexities of Angland's gender politics might be fleshed out in later volumes. I'd also love to see the apparent precariousness of this political system explored, especially as it holds an interesting mirror to the storylines with the elves (in Snowspelled) and fae (in Thornbound), in which treaties must be upheld because of the unknowable but almost-certainly-dire consequences for humanity if they aren't, as doled out by non-human intelligences who aren't at all interested in nice human answers. There's a lot to explore here, and while I can see this series leaning in to the "Lady Trent" tactic of glossing over anything Cassandra doesn't find interesting in her own story, its nice to have the perspective from Amy (and other points of view in future) to hopefully expand on some of these questions and themes.

Ultimately, this series is one which takes a generous interpretation of human nature and applies it to the concept of sacrifice - of what we give up, when, and how, of what it does or doesn't help us achieve, and about how to cut one's losses and accept the best circumstances available. While there are a couple of genuinely unpleasant characters, most of the interpersonal conflict in Cassandra's world stems from those who have given something up in order to protect what they see as the good of society: whether that be upholding a status quo and forcing themselves into a particular mould to do so, or pushing for reforms at the expense of their own wellbeing. The result is a trio of well plotted, tense, emotionally satisfying novellas which punch well above their length in terms of thematic weight. Comfort reading this series may be, but it's comfort at its most engaging, balancing trauma and intrigue with a great cast of characters and some very satisfying - romantic and otherwise - outcomes.

The Math:

Snowspelled: 8/10 Great introduction to the series, start here. Not-so-cosy winter themes perfect for cold nights under a blanket.

Spellswept: 7/10 A lovely diversion into the past. Slighter, but Amy remains a force to be reckoned with.

Thornbound: 8/10 A return to Cassandra and a great continuation of the overall themes, introducing new characters and settings and a fascinating central mystery.

Overall: 8/10

POSTED BY: Adri is a semi-aquatic migratory mammal most often found in the UK. She has many opinions about SFF books, and is also partial to gaming, baking, interacting with dogs, and Asian-style karaoke.

Reference: Burgis, Stephanie. Snowspelled [Five Fathoms Press, 2017]

"Spellswept, " first published in The Underwater Ballroom Society [Five Fathoms Press, 2018]

Thornbound [Five Fathoms Press, 2019]