Rollicking Romantasy: A Taste of Gold and Iron

I don't like Romantasy. There, I said it. 

If you aren't familiar with the genre... yes, you probably are. It's the fantasy book that's the size of a doorstopper but not written by Tolkien or George R. R. Martin. It will have a precious metal, royal term, element, or flower in the title (A Saint of Elderberries, A Throne of Dew and Wildflowers, you get the idea.) It will be a trilogy, minimum, and will normally have a teenage girl as the protagonist. 

Hundreds of pages will be devoted to a fairly interesting fantasy world and several thousand more will be devoted to the misunderstanding-filled romance she has with the love interest. Depending on their target they are sometimes 'spicy' which is fine, so long as nobody uses a term like 'erotica' or 'porn'. Only spiciness is allowed when talking about fantasy fap material. 

It strikes me that I sound both snobbish and sexist, as I write the above, especially as there is a certain amount of drama over it getting its own category in the Goodreads awards. I respect anyone who can write a book and I never look down on people for what they read. Nor do I object to an entertaining and erotic genre aimed at women. Romantasy just doesn't do it for me, that's all. I'm not the target market and I'm not a fan of YA, which it has close ties to. I prefer urban fantasy to traditional fantasy. Much like war novels and celebrity memoirs, it's not my thing.

Unless it's this book. In which case... fine. You got me. 

A Taste of Gold and Iron [Alexandra Rowland] is bloody amazing, actually. 

I only read it because I'm nearing the end of a particularly long reading challenge and one of the prompts I'd been putting off was 'A book titled 'A [BLANK] of [BLANK] and [BLANK]'. I'd already read the Game of Thrones ones and I'll be damned before I read A Court of Thorns and Roses. So I found this. It was queer, at least.

In it, Prince Kadou, a reluctant noble with an undiagnosed anxiety disorder, stuffs up some court politics so badly that his sister the Queen pushes a new bodyguard on him. The new bodyguard, Evemere, is no Kadou fan, thinking him unworthy of his title and potentially responsible for the deaths of his colleagues. Together they work to solve the mystery of counterfeit coins (a sin in the eyes of their culture) so that Kadou can prove himself to his sister. Naturally the mystery ramps up and they are soon making doe-eyes at each other, getting kidnapped together, kissing and being weird about it, accidentally getting married... all the good tropes.

Now, fanfic tropes in novels can be a big turn-off for me, as writers (and publishers) often assume it's the tropes themselves that we love, rather than the joy of repeatedly forcing our special little characters through them. It's like a bank assuming you love their ATMs rather than the access the ATMs give you to your money. They are too often used as a way of ramping up the sexual tension between two characters who haven't established themselves, when readers want the tension to be sky high before they are awkwardly telling the receptionist that one bed will be fine, really, we're both adults. 

This book gets it right by really committing to the slow part of the burn. All the romantic pieces are set up early, but it takes until at least the halfway point (of a 577 page book) before anything happens that would even raise the brow of a Victorian maiden aunt. By that point, Kadou and Evemere are well-rounded characters in their own right and I cared about them enough to be excited when the more cliched tropes came in to play. 

What's more, despite a few romantic wobbles, the characters act like real people would act - without ever feeling like they are doing something because the plot demands the character does so. No one rebels unnecessarily, or rushes off into danger wildly. People make bad choices and reflect on them. They try and grow as people. It was so satisfying in places that if it wasn't for the occasional sword battle I'd label it cosy fantasy. 

If the book falls down a little, it's that the central mystery doesn't really excite the reader. It's hard to see counterfeit coinage as a national emergency, and the moments of action felt more like perfunctory beats for the romance than interesting in their own right. Likewise, the 'metal tasting' aspect of the fantasy world is so minor that it felt like a background detail - neither of the main characters can even do it with any real skill. 

Despite this being a longer book, I counted down to the end with sorrow. I even put off reading the last ten percent until I could really savour it - not just blitzing through it on my lunch at work. I will admit that the ending wasn't everything I hoped for, with things happy but not fully resolved (hopefully in anticipation of working through the longer-term issues in another book). The mystery plot melted away as though the author was glad to be done with it. Since I was mainly there for the romance as well, it would be churlish of me to complain, but I did feel that a little bit more effort in that area would have rounded the book out nicely. 

This is at least balanced by an interesting element of court intrigue and there is a certain amount of excitement in the prospect of keeping the royals safe when there is an unknown traitor among their servants and bodyguards. If you are more interested in politicking and minor peril than high octane hijinks, this is the book for you.

All in all, this book is the reason I continue to buy novels that don't strictly fit my range of interests; sometimes a book is unexpectedly everything you want. Sometimes you really do find some precious metal amidst the coal dust. 

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