Review
An e-arc of the book has been provided by the publisher, Tor Dot Com Publishing, in exchange for an honest review.
Wouldn’t you agree that the strongest force that might make (or made) you read this book is its cover? Because that’s definitely why I read it.
A Taste of Gold and Iron is a fantasy story that revolves around a court intrigue laced with what will be our second strongest force, a romance between a prince and his bodyguard. Because how can you make that trope more spicy? By making it gay, of course.
The beginning of the story was relatively strong—introducing its reader to a conflict that shakes the foundation of familial bond and political security. This gives rise to curiousity to which readers will find themselves wanting to discover. I will not deny that the first few chapters of the story piqued my interest, from the gay love to the political disruption.
With progress, the book becomes flat real quick. What, at first, was intriguing slowly fades away thanks to the never ending youthful romance and lustful necessities of the characters.
The main plot of the story gets a steady decline as it gets overridden by something more trivial. It wouldn’t be a huge deal if the romantic element of the story was placed in a lower field than that of the intrigue being tackled, but it was too drowning that it became the face of the story.
I enjoyed the author’s playfulness with the climatic rise and fall within the book. It was interesting and I find them well placed—keeping you from wanting to put down the book. However, I dislike the amount of sexual tension placed within the book. It was fun at a certain degree but it began to become too much further down the story.
What else did I want more from the book? I was expecting more from its magical elements. As it was introduced early within the story, I was looking for depth to it. I didn’t expect it to be just a tool that’ll help the book gain momentum.
There was also the religious and cultural aspect of the story. Although this is something that can be discussed later on—specifically if a sequel is set to be written or is currently being written. If that is not the case, then it was lackluster as well. There were a wide cultural diversity within the story and I wanted more specifics from them. Similarly, the religion was well situated within the book but it wasn’t given a strong spotlight to become a gripping enough part of the novel.
Alexandra Rowland did an impressive job with pacing this book, she was good in creating the arc within the story, and her characters were done good enough to make them realistic yet she focused much on a theme that should’ve been a subgenre of the book. Overall, I enjoyed reading this book because I saw my personality with Kadou [main character]. I felt him in his moments of weakness and I was him on his panic attacks, but that wasn’t enough to make this book amazing.
