Ratings4
Average rating3.4
Now an Indie Next pick! A Most Anticipated Pick for BookRiot | FanFi Addict | The Nerd Daily | io9 | We Are Bookish | Buzzfeed Book of the Year for Kirkus Reviews, Book of the Year for Gizmodo “A delicious tangle of romance, fealty, and dangerous politics.”—Tasha Suri The Goblin Emperor meets "Magnificent Century" in Alexandra Rowland's A Taste of Gold and Iron, where a queer central romance unfolds in a fantasy world reminiscent of the Ottoman Empire. Kadou, the shy prince of Arasht, finds himself at odds with one of the most powerful ambassadors at court—the body-father of the queen's new child—in an altercation which results in his humiliation. To prove his loyalty to the queen, his sister, Kadou takes responsibility for the investigation of a break-in at one of their guilds, with the help of his newly appointed bodyguard, the coldly handsome Evemer, who seems to tolerate him at best. In Arasht, where princes can touch-taste precious metals with their fingers and myth runs side by side with history, counterfeiting is heresy, and the conspiracy they discover could cripple the kingdom’s financial standing and bring about its ruin. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
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Dropped at 35%
Like many reviewers, it wasn't the writing necessarily but the characterizations and lack of world building. This book just didn't seem planned out well. We're dropped into this somewhat-Middle Eastern type kingdom where gender and sexuality is a non-issue, there's elemental magic, and women always hold the highest offices. Sounds great, tell me more. Well, instead, we follow whingey, useless Prince Kadou around while he tries to keep a relationship he doesn't even want with one of his now-fired guard (who is annoying as all get out) while his new guard tries to ignore his own boner for Kadou. And that's all that happens for the first quarter of the book.