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A review by rainbowbrarian
Of Knights and Books and Falling in Love by Rita A. Rubin, Rita A. Rubin
2.0
Big thank you to @pridebooktours for the free ebook and including me in this tour!
I was hooked by the description of the book as “a sweet, slow burn romance and a bookstore with a cat set in a queernormative world!” I signed right up for the tour!
Things I liked about this book: an opinionated bookstore cat, a Black knight with natural hair as the heroic love interest, and the idea of a queernormative world.
To be totally honest, this book wasn’t for me. I think the plot was a little too cliche. The ideas were solid, but weren’t well developed enough. I think this writer could have great promise with a little more workshopping. Jayce and Alexius did have a slow burn romance but it felt mechanical, like they were reading from a script instead of having their feelings actually develop. They both were suffering from PTSD from the war, but it was touched on so briefly and vanished as fast that it felt fake. It was like the author understood that they should have lasting issues from the war, but didn’t really understand them well enough to write them.
The book struggled a bit overall with wanting to be a cozy book while still dealing with some very heavy issues (abuse, PTSD, survivors guilt, the need to atone, and regrets). I think it would have been better to have left those heavy elements out and chosen something more like past failed relationships or a failed business instead of a serious war.
I was hooked by the description of the book as “a sweet, slow burn romance and a bookstore with a cat set in a queernormative world!” I signed right up for the tour!
Things I liked about this book: an opinionated bookstore cat, a Black knight with natural hair as the heroic love interest, and the idea of a queernormative world.
To be totally honest, this book wasn’t for me. I think the plot was a little too cliche. The ideas were solid, but weren’t well developed enough. I think this writer could have great promise with a little more workshopping. Jayce and Alexius did have a slow burn romance but it felt mechanical, like they were reading from a script instead of having their feelings actually develop. They both were suffering from PTSD from the war, but it was touched on so briefly and vanished as fast that it felt fake. It was like the author understood that they should have lasting issues from the war, but didn’t really understand them well enough to write them.
The book struggled a bit overall with wanting to be a cozy book while still dealing with some very heavy issues (abuse, PTSD, survivors guilt, the need to atone, and regrets). I think it would have been better to have left those heavy elements out and chosen something more like past failed relationships or a failed business instead of a serious war.