ladybusiness | (Reply)

From:

I was glad to read your reaction to Daughter of Mystery, since while I liked it, it was a lot thicker and chewier than all descriptions suggested, and had even less romantic content than I'd expect. I did expect more emphasis on the f/f plotline, but I enjoyed the magic-mystery elements very much. And, even as a sideline, the love plot was frankly as good or better than anything in the few f/f genre romances I've seen. (I may be missing something important from the past few years of e-publishing, of course.)

stardreamer says most of what I'd want to say as a(nother) long-time Heyer reader, about the lack of on-the-page sex and all that. It's still more or less a Regency-style romance (despite the Ruritanian setting), but with so much more fantasy development than a traditional Regency would support that it morphs into something else. The religion-with-magic and philosophic development and the world-building overwhelm the other story elements a lot. This is, from one point of view (possibly HRJ's) a feature, not a bug, but it means Margerit's love affair is rather sidelined by several other life-and-death series of events. I'm not sure I mind, but it does tilt the book toward historical fantasy rather than historical romance.

Do I understand that some readers see the book as having asexual characters or themes? This didn't occur to me, either.