Reading: The Duke is Dead
Sep. 10th, 2019 06:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
white_hartAnkaret Wells and Irene Headley's new novel, The Duke is Dead, landed on my Kindle just before I went away. It seemed like a perfect choice for holiday reading, so I bumped it straight to the top of my to-read list and started it just before we went away.
The Duke is Dead is the first in a projected series, set in a fantasy world which bears a certain resemblence to late fifteenth-century Europe, although with key differences; in particular, the dominant religion is a more egalitarian version of Christianity where there were both female and male Apostles, dates are reckoned from an unspecified cataclysm which took place around 1000 years after the birth of Christ, and members of the royal houses possess "kingsblood", which gives each of them one of a range of arcane powers including shapeshifting, the ability to persuade people to the speaker's will, communicating with the dead and exceptional fighting skills. The Duke is Dead is set largely in the city of Briége, capital of the Duchy of Bergomance, where the recent death of Duke Gaston has left his only daughter Ambrosia as Duchess, with eligible princes from all the neighbouring states contending to win her hand in marriage and thereby join Bergomance to their territories. Supporting Ambrosia against the more importunate of these are her stepmother, Josiane, sister to King Roald of Ambion, and her brother Thomas, Duke of Wharram (whose crooked shoulder suggests a certain resemblance to Richard, Duke of Gloucester, younger brother of an English king and later king himself), and, more reluctantly, Nicolas ás Ithel, the sole living heir to the king Roald defeated to take the throne, concluding a long and hard-fought civil war, and his uncle Morcant ás Ithel, who find themselves in Briége by accident after they are forced to leave the court of Boisseul where they are living in exile when the Duke of Boisseul tries to sell Nicolas out to Roald of Ambion.
The novel is partly a political fantasy, full of intrigues, international incidents and court machinations, and partly a romance, as Thomas and Nicolas try to find a way to balance their places on opposing sides of a long and bitter conflict with their mutual attraction. In addition to the central m/m romance, there is at least one background f/f romance and a trans character. It's plotty and funny and snarky, with a delightful cast of characters (both the lead characters and those in the background) and some nice twists, and it was definitely perfect holiday reading. It reminded me rather of Dorothy Dunnett, if Dunnett had written fantasy and m/m romance; it doesn't quite reach Dunnett's level of "character X has had five minutes of happiness so now something utterly terrible will inevitably happen to them" and the plot is rather less Byazantine than Dunnett's, but there is a similar sense of densely textured history with real, complex characters and trade and commerce seen as being as important to international politics as battles and conquests. I gather that several more books are planned, and I hope thie is the case as I'm really looking forward to reading more set in this world.
(Disclaimer that both Wells and Headley are friends of mine, but this really is just terrific fun.)
The Duke is Dead is the first in a projected series, set in a fantasy world which bears a certain resemblence to late fifteenth-century Europe, although with key differences; in particular, the dominant religion is a more egalitarian version of Christianity where there were both female and male Apostles, dates are reckoned from an unspecified cataclysm which took place around 1000 years after the birth of Christ, and members of the royal houses possess "kingsblood", which gives each of them one of a range of arcane powers including shapeshifting, the ability to persuade people to the speaker's will, communicating with the dead and exceptional fighting skills. The Duke is Dead is set largely in the city of Briége, capital of the Duchy of Bergomance, where the recent death of Duke Gaston has left his only daughter Ambrosia as Duchess, with eligible princes from all the neighbouring states contending to win her hand in marriage and thereby join Bergomance to their territories. Supporting Ambrosia against the more importunate of these are her stepmother, Josiane, sister to King Roald of Ambion, and her brother Thomas, Duke of Wharram (whose crooked shoulder suggests a certain resemblance to Richard, Duke of Gloucester, younger brother of an English king and later king himself), and, more reluctantly, Nicolas ás Ithel, the sole living heir to the king Roald defeated to take the throne, concluding a long and hard-fought civil war, and his uncle Morcant ás Ithel, who find themselves in Briége by accident after they are forced to leave the court of Boisseul where they are living in exile when the Duke of Boisseul tries to sell Nicolas out to Roald of Ambion.
The novel is partly a political fantasy, full of intrigues, international incidents and court machinations, and partly a romance, as Thomas and Nicolas try to find a way to balance their places on opposing sides of a long and bitter conflict with their mutual attraction. In addition to the central m/m romance, there is at least one background f/f romance and a trans character. It's plotty and funny and snarky, with a delightful cast of characters (both the lead characters and those in the background) and some nice twists, and it was definitely perfect holiday reading. It reminded me rather of Dorothy Dunnett, if Dunnett had written fantasy and m/m romance; it doesn't quite reach Dunnett's level of "character X has had five minutes of happiness so now something utterly terrible will inevitably happen to them" and the plot is rather less Byazantine than Dunnett's, but there is a similar sense of densely textured history with real, complex characters and trade and commerce seen as being as important to international politics as battles and conquests. I gather that several more books are planned, and I hope thie is the case as I'm really looking forward to reading more set in this world.
(Disclaimer that both Wells and Headley are friends of mine, but this really is just terrific fun.)
