#Review - A Power Unbound by Freya Marske

A Power Unbound (Last Binding Trilogy, 3)
Freya Marske
Pan Macmillan, 9 November 2023
Available as: HB, 432pp, audio, e   
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(HB): 9781529080988

I'm grateful to the publisher for providing me with an advance e-copy of A Power Unbound to consider for review.

With A Power Unbound, Marske at last centres a book on Jack Alstom - Lord Hawthorn - one of the more enigmatic of the gallery of magicians and magic-adjacent individuals we've seen in this series, and a character who's always had a whiff of brimstone about him (Violet, you may recall, asked him to ruin her in A Restless Truth). As a reminder, the first book, A Marvellous Light, largely follows Sir Robin Blyth, our non-magician gateway to the world of these books, a Civil Servant and the Home Office's liaison with the enchanted world, and Edwin Courcey, his magician counterpart, as they fall in love while the second book, A Restless Truth is more Sapphic in tone, with Maud Blyth and the aforementioned Violet getting to up all sorts on an ocean liner. Behind the personal entanglements, though, a dastardly plot is evolving, a scheme to take all of the power of the British magicians into one pair of hands. This has proceeded as the conspirators find pieces of the "Last Contract" and as Jack, Edwin, Maud and others seek to prevent that.

A Restless Truth also introduced Alan - journalist, radical, peddler of smut, and thief - as a sort of counterweight to Jack and - given the previous books - that means there is a big element of will-they, won't they in A Power Unbound.  The powerful distaste between the two men, a distaste with its roots perhaps in a contrast between Alan's working class suffering and Hawthorn's hauteur, has not gone away but since the events of A Restless Truth Alan has also been enlisted in the last-ditch effort to save British magic. Marske does a terrific job here at unpeeling layer after layer of Alan's feelings - his resentment of those who, as well as being born with wealth and power, have inherited magic too; his revulsion at what was done to Jack to remove his magic (yes - finally, we're learning more about what has been going on, and it's riveting!) and his desire to protect and nurture his family. 

Plus, of course, his attraction to Jack...

Fantasy novels can often be accused of ignoring real social conditions, as well as being oblivious to the actual politics of a world in which magic is real, but Marske inverts this, making questions of power, agency and privilege central to the narrative. It's perhaps in keeping with this that when things get steamy between Jack and Alan (sorry, minor spoiler, but surely you expected that? It's not just me?) the liaison between titled aristocrat and scrabbling guttersnipe doesn't dodge those same issues of power and consent, with some lovemaking scenes where these things are in fact central to the sexiness, Jack and Alan negotiating their relationship by stages through some saucy role-play.

And yes, if you're a reader of a traditionalist hue who doesn't an appreciate these themes, maybe this book might not be for you - but I would still encourage you to at least try it. There is also plenty of conflict, scheming, magical combat and racing for time, as the clock counts down and the villains finally make their move - enough to keep any reader satisfied even if they don't really get on with the more  tender parts of the story. 

For me, A Power Unbound does several difficult things very well. It rounds off a complex through-plot, which Marske has made us care intensely about. It does justice to the historical background of the Imperialistic, Edwardian setting, without uncritically adopting the prejudices of the time (this is shown most fully in the Queer narrative strand, one of the reasons it would be a mistake to see this as something secondary). It does credit to characters we've come to love. And, even at this late stage in the trilogy, it gives us a great deal of new information to round out, explain and motivate pretty much everyone.

Lastly - and of course not lastly - it tells a rattling good, exciting story in its own right and totally lands the ending.

In short, I'm sad to see this series end, but it goes out firing on all cylinders, the perfect ending to the trilogy.

For more information about A Power Unbound, see the publisher's website here.

#Review - A Restless Truth by Freya Marske

A Restless Truth
Freya Marske
Pan Macmillan, 10 November 2022
Available as: HB, 400pp, audio, e
Source: Advance e-copy
ISBN(HB): 9781529080933

I'm grateful to the publisher for an advance e-copy of A Restless Truth via NetGalley to consider for review.

Following on from A Marvellous Light and taking place in the same Edwardian magical timeline - one threatened by the dark truth of how that magic originated - A Restless Truth focuses on two young women, Maud Blyth and Violet Debenham, who have taken passage on an ocean liner from New York to England. 

I love the idea of a Golden Age liner-set mystery. The little enclosed world. Strangers pushed together and having to get on (or not). A liminal space, neither one place nor the other. The different classes, demarcated but still cheek-by-jowl. People feeling free to be... a little free. The setup simply breathes intrigue, and A Restless Truth takes full advantage, it could indeed be a magical version of, say, Anything Goes! with the same Wodehousian complexity as the mess the two women are involved in becomes ever deeper and harder to untangle.

Where A Restless Truth departs from that model, of course, is in its frankly sensual aspect. I almost wrote 'subplot' but that's not right - this part of the story is not something that happen to Maud and Violet's it's about who they are (even if one of them enters the story innocent of that and is subject to an awakening). It is also as key to their motivations as are their magical interests and family backgrounds. They are attracted from the start and it's more a matter of when, not if, they will consumate that. Readers of A Marvellous Light will not be surprised by what follows. As in the previous book, Marske writes scenes between her lovers that are passionate, explicit and life-affirming. But to borrow that phrase again - Anything goes!

Readers of A Marvellous Light will also be pleased - as I was - to meet Lord Hawthorn again. We were introduced to Hawthorn in the earlier book where he wasn't particularly helpful to our heroes. Here, he's more obliging, either because Maud and Violet are more persuasive, or perhaps because on a liner he just can't escape them for long. Either way, Hawthorn is captivating. We do learn a little about him yet there is still a mystery that isn't resolved here - I want to know more! (Based on what we are told, I feel I ought to call him "Bad Lord Hawthorn" because he's the type that innocent young girls seek out when they have decided - like Violet - that it's time they were ruined. (He's happy to oblige)). Whether there is a redeeming streak to him (but do we want that?) or whether he just wants a quiet life, unpestered by interfering minxes, remains to be seen. 

What else? A pack of villains, obviously, some cooly dangerous and others bumbling. Murder. Jewel thieves. A radical vendor of smutty stories. A lot of social class barriers that Marske spends the novel disassembling, examining, reconstructing and generally subverting. Maud and Violet are shining examples of this disobliging attitude to convention (whatever is becoming of the young these days?) but there's more to them than that. In this short, hectic passage aboard ship, surrounded by peril and exploring aspects of themselves that Maud had never even dreamed of (well, maybe she'd dreamed...) there is still time and space for a most complicated relationship to build up between the two, one driven by social position, their previous histories, their fears and longings (really, really not simple!), not a little prejudice, and of course, Secrets.

It's all, frankly, captivating. I adored A Restless Truth, perhaps even more than its predecessor, if that's possible. Simple joy from the first page to the last with great characters, a ludicrous but involving plot and a great deal of action (of several types). 

Very strongly recommended, but more importantly, great fun.

For more information about A Restless Truth, see the publisher's website here.

#Blogtour #Review - A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske

A Marvellous Light
Freya Marske
Tor/ Pan Macmillan, 9 December 2021
Available as: HB, 384pp, e, audio
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(HB): 9781529080889

I'm grateful to the publisher for an advance copy of A Marvellous Light to consider for review and to Black Crow PR for inviting me to take part in the tour.

A rather magnificent queer romance with magic, A Marvellous Light takes us into an alternate Edwardian age where aristocrats weave spells at house parties, suffragettes chafe against the constraints of society, and dark forces seek powerful artefacts...

Sir Robin Blyth has recently inherited his father's baronetcy on the death of his parents. He's actually inherited little else, the family fortunes having been squandered in social climbing, and to make ends meet, he has taken a job in the Civil Service.

Unfortunately, this turns out far from the sinecure Robin might have hoped for. The Office of Special Domestic Affairs and Complaints is, it seems, the British Empire's own liaison with the world of magic and Robin's been placed there to replace the luckless Reggie Gatling, missing in suspicious circumstances. Before he knows what's hit him, he's under attack from faceless men - and strangely attracted by Edwin Courcey, his counterpart in the hidden world.

Courcey is a prickly, cold and reticent man, one who's been taught to bury his feelings deep, but something in him sparks at Edwin. 

These two awkward and shy men soon find that to survive they need to depend on each other. Edwin is all the help Robin will get with the magical forces now pursuing him, and Robin holds the only clues Edwin will get about what happened to his friend Reggie. So the two bicker along, introducing each other to their respective worlds as they race against time to understand a creeping curse.

I loved Edwin and Robin. Their reticence and defensiveness at first make this seem like Pride and Prejudice squared, but Marske soon shows how much of it proceeds from their being gay in a world that would persecute them for what they are. Yes, defensive instincts are all to the fore but it's because any moment of weakness - any confession of what they really feel - could be catastrophic. What follows is a measured and careful dance, interrupted by volcanic bursts of emotion - not just romantic passion, but fear, jealousy, despair. Edwin's awful family doesn't help: almost all better magicians than him, they're inclined to treat him with bored tolerance at best, scornful bullying more often.

You may, of course, guess how things will end up - I hope it's not too spoilery to say that there are, eventually, some very steamy scenes indeed. But that doesn't mean everything's done and settled. These are complicated men, thrown into an imbroglio of secrets, betrayal and lust for power. Much, much more is at stake than their personal happiness. If they make mistakes as they negotiate that tension, they risk death, ruin or, perhaps worst of all, being made to forget what they have found in one another. the stakes are certainly high.

Secrets are laid bare on many levels in A Marvellous Light. Most obviously, there's the process of "unbushelling", the revelation to a non-magical person of the hidden powers and abilities that exist in the world (the name coming form the Biblical reference to hiding one's light - the marvellous light of the title, perhaps - under a bushel, a container for grain). There's Robin and Edwin's sexuality, hidden from society and, at least initially, from each other. There's the revelation to each of them what the other is, or might be. And, more prosaically, there's the exposure of a fiendish plot that could endanger all magicians. And this is only the first in a series of books - who knows what secrets await?

This mannered and passionate book comes as something of a breath of fresh air in fantasy and introduces a pair of fascinating and deep characters who will I hope appear again soon in what is sure to be a successful and fun series.

For more information about A Marvellous Light, see the publisher's website here or the stops on the blogtour listed on the poster!