A Taste of Gold and Iron

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Warning: the ending is, if not quite a cliffhanger (because of course there is no suspense to the relationship and the political plot, ah, lol, that is veneer thin and just ornamental!) unsatisfactory. This is a very long book (170k words), much too long, but the ending is couple chapters short and it feels like a cheap attempt to make fans buy more books, more novellas to get further into a HEA for these characters. (In case it was not clear, I am going to be reading it, I do not care, halfway through I was just rage reading). I loved spending time with Kadou. A Taste of Gold and Iron is a beautiful love story with a warm, genuine, and hugely relatable portrayal of living with anxiety at its center, and I rooted for the main character all the way.”—Everina Maxwell, author of Winter's Orbit A Taste of Gold and Iron" was, in every sense, what a good political fantasy should be. Scenes including political turmoil outnumbered the romantic scenes. So, you can imagine..this book was heavy with court politics, treachery, betrayal and tactical negotiations. The political intrigue was surprisingly enjoyable. I don't like political fantasy novels that much. But the political discussions in this book were easy to understand and I thoroughly enjoyed them. The action sequences were great. I liked how the main characters were being thrust into forced proximity whenever a conflict appeared. Both of them, Kadou and Evemer, pretended that all of it was fake and out of necessity but they secretly waited for such opportunities. Opportunities when they could be together however they wanted without any obligations to follow by the ruled. Moments when they could express their hearts' desires; even if it was under disguises and pretense. Kadou and Evemer were loving it all. And me? I was busy trying not to melt into puddle... To prove his loyalty to his sister and salvage his reputation, Kadou takes responsibility for the investigation of a break-in at one of their guilds. He enlists the help of his newly appointed bodyguard, the coldly handsome Evemer, who seems to tolerate him at best. But what appears to be a straightforward crime spirals into a complex counterfeiting operation, with a powerful enemy at its heart. Who you are isn't the thoughts in your head or the fears in your heart or the name someone else gives you or takes from you. Who you are is what you do. It's the actions you take, or that you don't take. It's the way that you help people, or don't. It's the good that you put into the world, or the bad.”

While the world-building was wonderful, I must admire the author’s efforts for a different reason. This novel is very clearly focused on the romance, and the plot and world-building run as an undercurrent to Evemer and Kadou’s relationship. The time that went into crafting the elements of the world so that they could compliment and elevate the romance is immediately evident. The most obvious instance of this is the dynamic that is built between the khayalar – who are ferocious trained ‘guards’ – and the people they serve. The trust and understanding that must be placed between the two are so important. Evemer is assigned to Kadou, and before meeting him, has an intense hatred for the prince, due to an incident that occurs in the opening of the novel. This completely flipped the dynamic between the two, as Evemer, who had trained his whole life for this moment, resents the man he must protect with his life. The khayalar are so complex, and I loved how much detail went into building the political elements of the world, because it made all the tropes the author included work. The hate to love trope was tangible, Evemer had a real reason to hate Kadou. The progression of their relationship was masterful. I loved how, slowly, they were forced to rely only on each other, which naturally made for some interesting scenes. Hatred changed to respect, which grew into fondness, in turn blossoming into love. This all happened slowly, and at the right moments. For this relationship to change, the characters needed to develop. He’d replied in a little whisper so the strangers couldn’t hear him, “Nine, eight, six.” She had smiled as bright as new-minted coin and kissed his cheek and told him to keep his altın safe and not to put it in his mouth.In Arasht, where princes can touch-taste precious metals with their fingers and myth runs side by side with history, counterfeiting is heresy. The conspiracy they discover could cripple the kingdom’s financial standing – and bring about its ruin. But before he’d been able to answer her, Zeliha had declared that it was high time they all got out of the palace for a day and thought about literally anything besides kingdom-running. A hunt, she said, would be just the thing. The good? The tropes. There's an A03-style list of tags for what you can find in this book, I won't list them out but they are easy to find if you go looking, and most of them are delicious. And honestly how they played out was also, mostly, delicious. And actually most of what I found to be good in this story was the romance because I did like these characters; one was easier to love than the other as he was more fleshed out, but the other had a good bit of unlayering from how he started out, too, so it didn't feel too unbalanced. They are caught up in a complicated dynamic, and even though there was some angst due to pining and yearning and feeling unworthy being caught up in that, the dialogue that the author leaned on to express consent, reciprocity, the morality/ethics of it all, and understanding between them, was so good. To prove his loyalty to the queen, his sister, Kadou takes responsibility for the investigation of a break-in at one of their guilds, with the help of his newly appointed bodyguard, the coldly handsome Evemer, who seems to tolerate him at best. In Arasht, where princes can touch-taste precious metals with their fingers and myth runs side by side with history, counterfeiting is heresy, and the conspiracy they discover could cripple the kingdom’s financial standing and bring about its ruin. Tadek started off decent, and descended into a caricature of himself. He ended up being wildly childish and immature.

Looking at it with his eyes rather than just the senses in his fingertips, he could see that the counterfeit was extremely well made. If he had only glanced at it lying on the table, perhaps amongst genuine altınlar, he wouldn’t have taken any notice of it. He hadn’t been, particularly, on either count. He’d been too worried about the progress that wasn’t being made on the investigation at the Shipbuilder’s Guild, about Siranos arrogantly inserting himself into conversations he didn’t belong in and passionately declaring that Azuta Melachrinos, his fellow countrywoman, deserved a fair trial and representation in court … But then, Zeliha was right too—the Oissic Senate did seem to draw power-hungry bureaucrats, primarily.A Taste of Gold and Iron" is a queer fantasy romance that follows a shy price named Kadou and his reluctant bodyguard Evemer. Alexandra Rowland is the author of eight fantasy books, including A Taste of Gold and Iron, A Conspiracy Of Truths, and Some by Virtue Fall, as well as a four-time Hugo... Read more