A Gentleman's Position by KJ Charles

A Gentleman's Position

4/5. M/M historical. He is a titled gentleman of means, he is his ferociously competent valet who shines boots and makes scandals disappear.

This is also great. Admittedly, it hits a lot of my buttons –there's a 'power behind the throne' vibe that, yeah. But also this book inverts and reverts the power dynamics between them in fun and interesting ways. And maybe the foregrounded running argument they have about class difference and pride and the appropriateness of having power over someone you love is not terribly subtle, but it is interesting and to a purpose

So in sum I found the first book in this trilogy uninspiring, but the second and third are great, and I do recommend. And it's that loose 'friends group' structure that romance series use, so you can skip the first one without too much bother.

Black Wolves by Kate Elliott

Black Wolves

3/5. First in an epic fantasy trilogy. Three generations of kings and their queens and mistresses and children, and the "demons" stalking the land, and a brewing religious conflict, and ethnic conflict, and and.

I don't remember who was raving about this book – several people, IIRC – so I apologize, whoever you are, but oh.my.god. How much do I not care about this, let me count the ways. I mean, it actually is what people said, which is epic fantasy with feminist underpinnings (though you wouldn't know that by the publisher's summary, which is all "men men men!"). But there is just something a little flabby, a little stuffy, just something about Kate Elliott's writing that makes my brain slide right off it. I put this book down no fewer than five times to read something else, and had to make myself come back each time.

IDK, maybe it's actually epic fantasy that I can't stomach anymore. That would figure. Urban fantasy has always been so much more vital to me, more concerned with things I'm concerned with, and maybe that's extra true right now.

Um, nice things. There's a scene in which a bunch of people sing very loudly while a woman is vigorously trying to get pregnant by her husband who is about to be abducted to a labor camp, and it is genuinely funny/sad. If only the other twenty-eight odd hours of recorded run-time in this book could have been so alive, so specific, so personal.