Reading: Snowspelled

Stephanie Burgis is an author I've been meaning to try for ages (I know I have had at least one of her YA novels on my kindle for a long time) but never quite got round to. On Thursday night, though, she was offering copies of her adult novella, Snowspelled, free on Twitter to anyone who wanted some escapist distraction, and having just finished a book and feeling in need of escapist distraction but too twitchy and anxious about the election on top of everything else to hunt through my kindle for something suitable I thought that it sounded like the perfect thing.

Snowspelled is a Regencyesque romance set in the country of Angland, where magic is the preserve of gentlemen, leaving the serious business of politics to women. Cassandra Harwood, however, has chosen to defy convention, refusing to follow her mother into politics and instead becoming the first woman magician in Angland. Following an accident which has left her unable to use her magic, she is not looking forward to attending a week-long house-party in the heart of the elven dales, full of gentleman magicians, lady politicians and, worst of all, her ex-fiancé. When she encounters an elf-lord while assisting in the search for a missing party of guests, Cassandra finds that she will have to discover who is responsible for causing the heavy snowfall that has cut the party off, or risk a breach of the treaty between humans and elves which brought an end to centuries of bitter and bloody warfare - and the only person who can help is her ex-fiancé.

This is a deliciously frothy romance-cum-mystery, full of entertainingly snarky dialogue (I particularly loved the interactions between Cassandra and her brother) and with an interesting exploration of the constraints of a very different set of gender roles to the ones applying in our world. Although the main romance is m/f, there is a background f/f romance and a suggestion that this isn't completely unheard of in this world; there are also a number of characters of colour and it's strongly implied that race is not an issue in this world. I found it utterly charming and exactly the kind of entertaining escapism I needed this weekend. There's a second novella in the series, as well as a prequel novella about the romance between Cassandra's brother and sister-in-law, and I have already bought both.

Walking: the Oxford Canal and Stratfield Brake

We were going to go for a longer walk today, but it rained heavily again last night and we we worried that anything involving paths across fields would be a long, squelchy slog, so we decided to stick closer to home and just walked along the canal and through the nature reserve to Sainsbury's again.



It was a lot muddier than it was last weekend, but we knew that the only really squelchy bit of the walk would be the first bit after crossing the canal into the nature reserve, and that's only 100m or so. The forecast showers held off, and we saw a pheasant flying across the canal and a red kite flapping low over the path as we walked through the woods (I'm always surprised by just how big they are close to). It's only a short walk (just over two and a half miles) but it was good to get out in the fresh air for a bit.