A Taste of Gold and Iron

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If he had only glanced at it lying on the table, perhaps amongst genuine altınlar, he wouldn’t have taken any notice of it.

Nine hundred and eighty-six parts pure gold out of every thousand, he knew now, a fineness that had been set hundreds of years before and had never once changed, not for generations, not for dynasties. No matter that Zeliha had brushed all these incidents off the very next morning when Kadou reported to her—all except the finer details of what Siranos had said and done, of course, because that felt like retaliation, like making a fuss about nothing, like escalating the conflict again after Melek had gone to all the trouble of deflecting it. Witty, clever, and often extremely funny, Rowland’s tale of a prince who doesn’t want power but has it anyway—and must survive all the risks that brings with it— somehow manages to be both soft and hard-edged, clever and kind.I feel like there are so many beautiful elements of the story I haven’t even spoken about, and others I’ll never be able to do justice. While it is a romantic fantasy novel, it’s also a political thriller, heist, and family saga at once. It had rather been at the top of his mind lately due to the troubles with Eyne’s body-father, the way he stalked around Kadou, scrutinizing him so closely, glaring at him, making it clear with every glance that he believed that Kadou was up to something.

Tone and style-wise, Alexandra Rowland’s new novel feels like a cross between The Goblin Emperor and Winter’s Orbit. Someone would have reported to her that Tadek, who had been assigned to Kadou’s personal service last year, had suddenly been asking around about Siranos, about his motives, about any gossip surrounding him. Not since The Goblin Emperor have I encountered a character whose vulnerability and fundamental decency made me want to actively stand between them and every other character out of sheer, immediate protectiveness. It was meaningless noise for a long time, and I think the counterfeiting plot was introduced on like page one? Ruoxi understands on a really profound level what I am trying to do with this book, and I am absolutely giddy at the prospect of working with her.

All of them felt like real people and the book didn’t shy away from giving them realistic faults and ambitious aspirations. A Taste of Gold and Iron is a slow-burn romance flush with sexy, complicated relationships and founded on the ethics of duty and love. Mama had bent down and picked him up, settling him on her hip, and he’d put his face into her hair and neck to hide, but she’d said, “Look, sweetheart, it’s your grandfather. Some people are going to be obsessed with it and others, like me, will find it difficult to keep their minds from wandering off the page. 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.

I needed a break and some fresh air and entertainment, and there’s really nothing more entertaining than watching a bunch of fussy people traipse around on their ponies and try to kill things without getting their hands or their hems dirty. She stared up at him solemnly as he did it—her eyes were huge and already quite dark grey, promising to darken to the classic blue-black of the Mahisti family, the same as his and Zeliha’s.Tessa Gratton Witty, clever, and often extremely funny, Rowland's tale of a prince who doesn't want power but has it anyway – and must survive all the risks that brings with it – somehow manages to be both soft and hard-edged, clever and kind. Siranos and his sister Sylvia have paper thin personalities that cannot support the amount of plot they’re expected to carry. This should have been a great fit for me - fantasy world with political intrigue, and a queer central romance? Zeliha had waved off any further need for rest and recovery from childbirth when she’d heard what the Oissic merchant had been arrested for, declaring that she would attend to that matter herself so that Kadou could give his full attention to the Shipbuilder’s Guild.