I’m so sad rn, but this was so dull. Cozy fantasy should still have emotional stakes.
I’m actually writing this review straightly upon finishing because I just want to be done with it (barring my May YouTube wrap-up, but talking is easier than writing). Like many, I have been really, really into this cozy fantasy thing since Legends and Lattes first did its thing, and unfortunately, I think this author learned the wrong lessons from that book, which she tells us in the afterword was a huge “inspiration” for her own book. By the fact that her queer femme characters cease their lives of violence to open up a cozy business focused on pursuits of coziness (in this case tea and books), and the book focuses on their struggles doing that, here I found that I just did not care at all. From page one.
Some people have complained that this actually has too high of stakes for a cozy fantasy since monarchs and treason and such are involved, but for me cozy fantasy is about the vibes, and this was definitely going for that. Where I think it lost its grip on stakes is emotionally. Even stories with low stakes have to have narrative tension, and there was absolutely none to be found here, I think for several reasons.
The main reason, unfortunately, is that I don’t think Thorne has much of an instinct for storytelling. Storytelling is about building expectations, and then satisfying or frustrating them. At no point did I develop any sort of expectation or yearning to see what would happen, plotwise or characterwise. Probably you could go in to this book knowing the trajectory of this plot pretty accurately based on the genre, so plot tension is not going to cut it; there also has to be character tension, and Thorne’s characters were very dull for me. I couldn’t attach to them. We enter their relationship with them already two years in love, we at no point think they won’t end the story in love, and the characters themselves have very little personality to make up for any lack there. The prose is also very into telling, not showing. We are told things about the characters, we don’t see them doing or saying things that would make us FEEL who they are.
Also, the queen and the politics, as well as the worldbuilding in general were sort of irritating. Also irritating, the love story between the two main characters. I didn’t feel it at all, and resented being forced to read about it. I don’t think I will be reading any more of this author’s books, and I’ll be selling my self-pub version of this on Pango, bc mama needs money.
