ARC Review: A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland
erratic's review: 4 of 5 stars
What A Taste of Gold and Iron delivers is a slow burn meandering romantic fantasy novel with undercurrents of political intrigue and magic. It dumps you right into the world without explaining anything (something fairly common with Science Fiction and Fantasy) but I got the hang of everything by the second chapter. I would have appreciated a tiny bit more explanation but the book was simplistic and shallow enough it ultimately didn't matter. Some people probably won't like how entry-level SFF the book is but it made me enjoy it more.
What I particularly liked was the evolution of the romantic relationship between Evemere and Kadoun through their oaths to each other. Their first oaths of fealty were during an emotional mutual hair washing scene which was :chefskiss:. I fully bought into how they grew to care for each other throughout the book too. I also liked how the women in the book were unapologetic about their power and the book was unapologetic about the existence of queer relationships and nonbinary people. Normalizing what is often othered in real life is something I will always appreciate in media.
What I wish the book had was a more developed and less obvious conspiracy plot because it was telegraphed from, like, chapter one and by 75% it barely mattered anymore. I also wish the ending wasn't so abrupt. A more developed ending or an epilogue or something would have made this a five star book for me. Instead I felt like I reached the end of the road and smacked right into a blank wall. Give me more payoff, book!
Overall, if a fantasy-setting domestic slowburn and emotional oaths of fealty is something you're into this book is worth a read.
the kevin's review: 2 of 5 stars
This should have been a great fit for me - fantasy world with political intrigue, and a queer central romance? Perfection.
Unfortunately, I got neither fantasy, intrigue, nor romance.
I’m going to do bullet points for a few of my criticisms, just to hit the main things that bothered me.
World building and plot
• There was a distinct lack of actual world building going on. This tried for the ‘chuck the reader in’ route, but it went too hard. I had no idea what was going on for a while, because there were names, countries, cities, concepts, etc. I had no context. It was meaningless noise for a long time, and I think the counterfeiting plot was introduced on like page one?
• The political intrigue I’d expected was painfully simplistic. The villain was absurdly transparent. I am a total dingdong when it comes to mystery plots, and this was obvious from the first time they’re introduced.
• The mystery plot got lost constantly, to the point that I didn’t understand what or why was happening. The break-in? I actually still don’t know what that was about.
• The end of the book, like the last 30%, was kind of a disaster. It made little to no sense. A lot of it was taken up by dithering about feelings (unsupported) and not talking.
• On the romance front, I don’t even consider this a slow burn, because there was no burn. It goes from nothing to instalust to dithering to instalove.
Characters
• There were a lot of secondary characters and I got them all mixed up.
• Kadou I never warmed to. He was, quite frankly, a total disaster. I can sympathize with the anxiety struggles, but oh my god he was useless on the political/planning/thinking front. How is he a royal prince with that total lack of brain?
• Evemer is just kind of a block. He spends most of his time being judgey, and then denying feelings to himself. …hm yes.
• Tadek started off decent, and descended into a caricature of himself. He ended up being wildly childish and immature.
Other
• This was, overall, meandering and extremely slow to go absolutely nowhere. Lots of digressions on random topics that didn’t serve to improve the characters, my understanding of them, their relationships, or even the world. They were just random info dumps.
• This also ruined action scenes - what should have been a tense fight scene got dragged into some distant-feeling academic process of fighting forms.
• There were pages upon pages of these “oaths of fealty” which I guess if that’s what you like, then you’re in luck. I was bored to tears.
• There were also random pages of ethics and currency and babbys first economics lectures.
The positive
The truth telling witch, Tenzin. She was cool.
“Nope,” she said. “And I don’t really care.”
“I’m getting paid as we speak,” she said with a grin, slouching down into her chair and crossing her arms. “I’m getting paid in chaos.”
And yes, I am aware she was around for like five pages total.
Overall, this had an inordinate number of pages for the amount of actual content. I really thought I’d love this - the concept sounded so good! - but it was a real disappointment. I hope it works better for other people.
We received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for our honest review. All the opinions are our own.
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