A review by mischel
A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

I REALLY liked the romance in this. The characters were SO SO vividly written, easy to love, and their slow-burn love story was just excellent! That said, I do have a few notes.

First, I really would have appreciated a map, or at the very least, a glossary. I struggled to remember what everything meant at the start, and there were so many terms! Kahya, Kahyalar, Satyota, or Usmim to name a few, and a dozen place names that I no longer remember.

Second, when I started the book I really hoped the entire plot wouldn't revolve around the coins, but how wrong I was 😂 But that was my mistake, I went into it completely blind and didn't even really read the summary 😂 I guess for me, when a book is "adventurous", it means that there's high stakes, danger, and definitely some travelling, and not just moving between only three places (chambers, garden, tavern, chambers, garden, tavern, different chambers, garden, different tavern, etc.) and worrying about coins. It honestly felt more like urban fantasy than regular fantasy, and that's not really my thing. Because of this, the first half of the book felt almost a little too slow for me (the excellent chemistry between Kadou and Evemer definitely kept me reading though), but thankfully, the second half was much better. The stakes were higher (finally some concrete danger!), the characters were finally moving around (getting kidnapped, even! Though that particular part was very short-lived imo), and it felt like things were moving along. Both the romance and the coin plot.

Third, I really wish the main villain wasn't

Spoiler

Siranos

😂 If you had asked me on the third page of the entire book who the villain was, I would have guessed correctly. Which is precisely why I hoped it wouldn't be him, I thought the book would give me at least one plot twist, but alas.

And fourth, I was excited for the metal-tasting "magic" powers, but in the end, it was barely ever used. I hoped the ability would lead to some epic moments but unfortunately it didn't. At all. But at least it was interesting enough -- I liked how

Spoiler

Kadou's touch-taste of iron changed bc of the memory with Evemer,

that was cool.

All of that aside though, as I said before, I LOVED the love story. It was slow but so real and just so enjoyable and perfect. I couldn't stop reading whenever Kadou and Evemer had a scene together, and I cheered every time they seemed to get closer. And just, ALL the characters!! Where do I even start? They felt so real!! When I compare them to the characters in the last book I read, the contrast is almost funny, because both Kadou and Evemer and all the other characters, really, were so different from each other. Their personalities were so clear, and just so, so, so, as I said before, vivid. I think that's why the romance worked so well. Kadou and Evemer had a great chemistry.