A goofy, over-the-top farce with the volume dialed up to 11. Which seems absurd to complain about, given how I just read and loved Something Extraordinary—surely if anything is dialed up to 11 it’s the Tarletons. But Alexis Hall grounds his farce with deep emotion and intimacy, using it to scratch away at the actual farce of a society that dictates such rigid, preposterous roles. I feel Erica Ridley wanting to do something similar, but it stays at the superficial level, with ripped abs and lust at first sight and a relationship that’s just as conventional as you please, apart from a heroine with a sword. I applaud the found family and the chronic disability rep, but without deeper character work, this veers into cartoonish and (she winces) boring territory for me.
ARC kindly provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.