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A review by alicesbookrecs
A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland
3.0
In theory this book is everything I wanted: a queer fantasy romance involving a prince and his bodyguard. However, perhaps this is why I was so disappointed with it; it had so many drawbacks that I considered dnf-ing it for the first 1/3 of it. I would have rated it 2.5 stars if I could but as I enjoyed the second half a lot more than the first I decided to round it up to 3.
To start with something I liked, the story centred around older characters, with the main character being 25 which is rare to see in fantasy.
Now to get onto the things that I didn't; the book reads a bit like a fan fiction for me in terms of the world building and some of the writing. To start with the world building, it feels like we’re kind of thrown into a world where we should already know everything - their is no explanation or context to the locations, powers… described. We’re just thrown into this world and are expected to know and remember everything. As an example, I didn't really understand sense memory for a while as it was just introduced in passing, and didn't realise that it was a common power that apparently people like 1 in 10 people had; ‘Satoya’ also weren't explained until it was necessary in the story. Also, concepts such as ‘bodyfathers’ were just mentioned with no explanation of what one actually was until about 2/3 into the book. The çe and çir was also confusing as I thought they were new characters the first time I saw them, and honestly I’m still unsure of what they were supposed to mean as I just mentally substituted them for ‘he’ and ‘him’.
To get onto the writing, it was kind of clunky in some places - some sentences were unnecessarily long making them hard to read, with one spanning over 8 lines; I had to re-read this one about 3 times to fully understand it.
I’m also normally a fan of longer chapters, but for this book it just killed me slowly - one of the chapters was 64 pages and I honestly wanted to dnf it there.
Also the way Tenzin just let them escape so easily and even went with them …
The amount of descriptions of Kadou being anxious throughout this book again slowly killed me. At first I regarded it as relatable as I also struggle strongly with anxiety, and it was also a big part of his character so I understood, but from like the third chapter in when the author spent ages describing how much of an anxious mess he was I just got annoyed by this as it felt like it was mentioned every other page (which it was, if not more frequently).
I’d also like to point out how much of a shit stirrer Siranos is; anyone with a brain could see that Kadous too much of an anxious mess to plan something against his own sister and I honestly don’t understand how the whole plot of the book is based around this. Due to this, I disliked Kadous sister as she seemingly decided to stop using her brain and put her hoe over her bro.
Linking to the previous point, the villain in the book is so obvious from the moment he's introduced that its painful; there were no surprises or plot twists at all.
Now to get onto the relationship between Kadou and Evemer. It seems like the author was trying to incorporate a bit of an enemies to lovers and forbidden love feel but it failed for me even though I normally love these troupes. When the two first met they both regarded one another as handsome and attractive; however, due to how two of Kadous guards died, which were also Evermers friends, he immediately hated him, disregarding the fact that they literally did their jobs.
I also wasn't a fan of how Evemers whole perception of Kadou changed after he saved his life, with him going from hating Kadou to immediately admiring his eyes. this just seems like such a flimsy vain overused troupe of ‘oh he saved me I’m in love with him now’, and it also didn't make much sense honestly when you consider how Evemer thought of Kadou at the start of the book. [SPOILER]
Also not Evemer realising he was in love with Kadou while literally scrubbing his back…
I’d also like to point out that they technically didn’t consummate their marriage.
[END OF SPOILER]
Linking to how I don’t get how Evemers opinion of Kadou does a complete flip, another big thing that made me want to dnf this book was how Evemer kept wondering what was wrong with Kadou and calling him flighty and careless; to me it read as really condemning and un-understanding. He literally tells himself that he has to “forgive” Kadou for having anxiety and essentially being a human …
It did generally get more interesting halfway through the book though as the pace picked up.
Eozena also deserves a notable mention, with her providing my favourite line in the book: “If I have erred and one of them turns out to be a traitor, Majesty, please don’t worry about arranging a trial for me. I will handle it honourably by myself. I’m thinking of the cliff, so I have plenty of time to think about my errors on the way down”
The ending was also a bit lacklustre.
Due to all this, I really struggled to read this book which normally is never a thing - there was too much going on and I had to concentrate so much on what I was reading and re read things too often and I couldn't really get into the relationship of Kadou and Evemer.
To start with something I liked, the story centred around older characters, with the main character being 25 which is rare to see in fantasy.
Now to get onto the things that I didn't; the book reads a bit like a fan fiction for me in terms of the world building and some of the writing. To start with the world building, it feels like we’re kind of thrown into a world where we should already know everything - their is no explanation or context to the locations, powers… described. We’re just thrown into this world and are expected to know and remember everything. As an example, I didn't really understand sense memory for a while as it was just introduced in passing, and didn't realise that it was a common power that apparently people like 1 in 10 people had; ‘Satoya’ also weren't explained until it was necessary in the story. Also, concepts such as ‘bodyfathers’ were just mentioned with no explanation of what one actually was until about 2/3 into the book. The çe and çir was also confusing as I thought they were new characters the first time I saw them, and honestly I’m still unsure of what they were supposed to mean as I just mentally substituted them for ‘he’ and ‘him’.
To get onto the writing, it was kind of clunky in some places - some sentences were unnecessarily long making them hard to read, with one spanning over 8 lines; I had to re-read this one about 3 times to fully understand it.
I’m also normally a fan of longer chapters, but for this book it just killed me slowly - one of the chapters was 64 pages and I honestly wanted to dnf it there.
Also the way Tenzin just let them escape so easily and even went with them …
The amount of descriptions of Kadou being anxious throughout this book again slowly killed me. At first I regarded it as relatable as I also struggle strongly with anxiety, and it was also a big part of his character so I understood, but from like the third chapter in when the author spent ages describing how much of an anxious mess he was I just got annoyed by this as it felt like it was mentioned every other page (which it was, if not more frequently).
I’d also like to point out how much of a shit stirrer Siranos is; anyone with a brain could see that Kadous too much of an anxious mess to plan something against his own sister and I honestly don’t understand how the whole plot of the book is based around this. Due to this, I disliked Kadous sister as she seemingly decided to stop using her brain and put her hoe over her bro.
Linking to the previous point, the villain in the book is so obvious from the moment he's introduced that its painful; there were no surprises or plot twists at all.
Now to get onto the relationship between Kadou and Evemer. It seems like the author was trying to incorporate a bit of an enemies to lovers and forbidden love feel but it failed for me even though I normally love these troupes. When the two first met they both regarded one another as handsome and attractive; however, due to how two of Kadous guards died, which were also Evermers friends, he immediately hated him, disregarding the fact that they literally did their jobs.
I also wasn't a fan of how Evemers whole perception of Kadou changed after he saved his life, with him going from hating Kadou to immediately admiring his eyes. this just seems like such a flimsy vain overused troupe of ‘oh he saved me I’m in love with him now’, and it also didn't make much sense honestly when you consider how Evemer thought of Kadou at the start of the book. [SPOILER]
Also not Evemer realising he was in love with Kadou while literally scrubbing his back…
I’d also like to point out that they technically didn’t consummate their marriage.
[END OF SPOILER]
Linking to how I don’t get how Evemers opinion of Kadou does a complete flip, another big thing that made me want to dnf this book was how Evemer kept wondering what was wrong with Kadou and calling him flighty and careless; to me it read as really condemning and un-understanding. He literally tells himself that he has to “forgive” Kadou for having anxiety and essentially being a human …
It did generally get more interesting halfway through the book though as the pace picked up.
Eozena also deserves a notable mention, with her providing my favourite line in the book: “If I have erred and one of them turns out to be a traitor, Majesty, please don’t worry about arranging a trial for me. I will handle it honourably by myself. I’m thinking of the cliff, so I have plenty of time to think about my errors on the way down”
The ending was also a bit lacklustre.
Due to all this, I really struggled to read this book which normally is never a thing - there was too much going on and I had to concentrate so much on what I was reading and re read things too often and I couldn't really get into the relationship of Kadou and Evemer.