Thanks to netgalley.com and Serial Box Publishing for the advance ARC copy for my honest review.

Not a normal genre that I typical read, but like this one a lot, the Hill, Riverside, swordsmen, sex, scandal, the evil Duchess Diane, who thinks everything revolves around her, then you got Rafe, whose working for his parents now, IxKaab who seems to have shunned her trader family, several new characters and set at the Convocation, an annual soiree that opens the Council of Lords.

POV – 3rd person, multi character, often omni-present
Would I read it again – Yes!
Genre – LGBT, Fantasy, Serial, Historical, Coming-of-Age, Queer
Content Warning – mild violence, sexual situations, adultery/cheating, prostitution
Orientations – MM, MF, FF



** COPY RECEIVED THROUGH NETGALLEY **



I love the world building of this series, and the talented writers who bring it all together, but I was left heartbroken by the events of Season One and I'm hopeful that Season Two will at least offer some relief from that. I'm coming straight into this, just an hour after finishing Season One, so it's all fresh in my mind. There are still the infrequent issues of editing mistakes, changes of tense that don't always make sense, as were in Season One, but the recurring issue of font change has been eliminated, which is a relief.

Because of the format Netgalley sent, or perhaps because of how Kindle interprets them, the formatting for the first half of this series of ARC's was terrible. The documents had either one or two lines then a line of gapping, repeated throughout and it wasn't only hard on the eyes, but made it more difficult to follow in terms of flow. The second half were much better formatted.

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Episode 1: Convocation, by Ellen Kushner

★★★★☆
Pages: 46

While I love that the story picks up right after the end of Season 1, I found it a little strange that there wasn't even a hint of a recap of those events until 48% into this episode. I've come straight in from reading Season 1 from beginning to end, so I didn't need it, but I can imagine it would be confusing for anyone who had to wait for this episode to be released, after Season 1 ended.
Diane is quite a snake, slinking in and out of various plots that it's almost inevitable that she'll find herself tangled up without hope of escape at some point, but I can't imagine it being any time soon. She's too big a character to remove her, until there's another high power to take her place.
As well as all the old characters from Season 1, we were introduced to some new ones; Arthur, who is an interesting relation to Ixkaab, and Lord Lionel, both of whom will be Diane's pawns for likely the remainder of the season.
My poor Rafe was back! Just as heartbroken as ever. And what the ever loving hell was Ixkaab doing at his side? It was obvious that she hadn't shared the truth of Will's condition to him, that she was defying her family for the sake of Tess, which put all of her schemes with Diane last season to waste. I can't understand how she can call herself his friend and stand by his side, knowing how heartbroken he is without telling him about Will. She could have saved him from his insanity, and the now rampant gossip that he's as good as dead.
And now Diane is about to steal his entire heritage. Well, damn. I can only hope that one day Rafe finds Will, gets him out of his insanity and out of Diane's clutches, and they escape together off into the sunset, leaving it all behind.

Favourite Quote

“Rafe was sworn to abstinence. A little drunk one night – well, a lot – shortly after he'd joined his father's business, he'd found his way to the Temple, hacked off his long student's hair, laid it on the alter, and sworn that if the gods would help him find his William, Rafe would not so much as touch another man.”

“His short time with William, Duke Tremontaine – his beautiful, brilliant, passionate, innocent Will – seemed like a dream sometimes.”