Heather Fawcett just posted on her Instagram that a 4th Emily Wilde book is set to release in January of 2027! I love this series and I’m so excited for more stories in this world. According to the post it’ll be darker in tone than her previous installments.

{Emily Wilde by Heather Fawcett}

Photo courtesy of Heather Fawcett’s instagram

I know I can’t be entirely alone, but it feels that way because I can’t find any other posts about it and he’s an allegedly decorated narrator. His narration just sounds so overacted/overstylized and it takes me out of the story. I felt like I was grinning and baring it through {The Witch Walker Series}. I’ve been waiting for CW to release the next book for so long, but I’m dreading listening to the audiobook version.

I’m pretty sure he narrates the FBAA series as well.

Note: I know I can read the next book, but audiobooks are my little escape right now, as I’m a full time student and I feel like all I do is read “analog” books, if you will 😅.

Maybe it’s because he sounds almost exactly the guy narrating this video from my high school years: https://youtu.be/MBHOL1PcPR8?si=3H92uvp39G4k6fiK

✨ Old but Gold - welcome to our new recommendations thread!

These days, there's a lot of marketing around newly released books, so we wanted to shed some light on oldies that came out more than 20 years ago but aged like fine wine! Hopefully, the community enjoys them, too. ❤️

Each month, there'll be a post with a book released **before 2010 and before 1995**.  This month we are going way back to before 1980 for two famous, influential but very different books. 

And this month’s picks are **{The Princess Bride by William Goldman}** from 1973 and **{Biting the Sun by Tanith Lee}** from 1977/1979 (it contains two stories.)

The Princess Bride

(review by u/aristifer)

Everybody here has seen the movie, right? (If you haven’t, that’s what you’re doing next weekend. Get to it). But did you know that the movie was based on a book? 
Well, if you’ve seen the movie, you already have a good feel for the book, because it’s a very faithful adaptation—in fact, the author, who is primarily a screen writer, wrote the screenplay himself. The biggest difference is really in how the metafictional framing story was adapted to film. The conceit of the novel is that as a child, Goldman (or rather, a fictionalized version of him) had The Princess Bride by Florinese author S. Morgenstern read to him by his father when sick. Revisiting the story as an adult, he realizes that the book is actually a very dry, longwinded satire of Florinese politics, and his father had only been reading him the good bits. So he sets out to abridge the novel into the exciting story he remembers. The beloved tale of Westley and Buttercup’s adventures and romance is punctuated by fictional-Goldman’s commentary, including editorial notes about the material he has cut, complaints about his publisher and tangents about his career and personal life. 
(NB: there are several different editions of this book, and the later editions have additional content, including the first chapter of the (fictional, never-written) sequel, Buttercup’s Baby, so pay attention to which edition you’re reading). 

**Quality of writing**
This is a classic for a reason. The prose is exactly what it needs to be to suit its purpose, and it hits the mark brilliantly. That means a distinct difference in style and register between the “Morgenstern” narrative and the “Goldman” commentary. The former is playing with the traditional fairy tale mode in a similar way to how Douglas Adams plays with sci-fi in Hitchhiker’s Guide, while the latter is informal and meanders into tangential anecdotes about fictional-Goldman’s life. It’s all highly readable; you’re not getting any overwrought flowery prose except where used satirically, and you also aren’t getting any embarrassing grammatical faux pas or clunky constructions that aren’t part of intentional characterization. Goldman is an actual pro. 

**Characters**
The narrative in Westley and Buttercup’s story is third-person omniscient, which makes its approach to character read very differently to most modern fantasy romance. We get less character interiority, more distanced satirical commentary about the characters’ assumptions, motivations and abilities. This is a story about characters; it is not at all a vehicle to self-insert, and it is more comedic than emotionally involved. 
In Buttercup especially, we see how this book is a product of a time before fantasy began its interrogation of gender. Buttercup is mostly a passive object for Westley to rescue, with her most important characteristic being her beauty (and this is dwelt upon at length). The narrative drops a lot of hints that she is not very smart, and she unfortunately exercises pretty much zero agency in getting herself out of her situation, beyond clinging to her fervent belief that Westley will rescue her. 
Westley’s whole character is competence porn; he accomplishes a dozen impossible things before breakfast and defeats everyone who challenges him while also outsnarking them, which makes it impossible not to root for him. But the real gems in this story are actually the side characters, Inigo and Fezzik. The narrative gives us a lot of background info on their personal histories that didn’t make it into the movie, and they are flawed and lovable and have an absolutely delightful buddy bromance.
 
**Did it age well?**
As a product of the 1970s, there’s some stuff in here that definitely would not fly today, most of it in Goldman’s meta-narrative. Fictional-Goldman is kind of an ass, so it’s all in character; he criticizes his fictional son for being overweight, complains about his fictional wife, drops some racist and homophobic remarks, ogles women and puts the moves on them while traveling for work. But some of it does make it into the “Morgenstern” story, including Miracle Max referring to Inigo by an ethnic slur and Westley slapping Buttercup in anger when they are first reunited. The only major female character being dumb and useless and valued only for her beauty is not a great look. But if you can look past that stuff, the adventure and comedy really does hold up. 

**But aristifer, is this REALLY fantasy romance?**
I would consider it a proto-fanro. It is certainly fantasy, and the story-within-a-story certainly has a romance structure, and Westley is very much an archetypal MMC. The omniscient comedic voice is different from a lot of modern romantasy, though it does have echoes in novels like The Ornithologist’s Field Guide to Love by India Holton and Small Miracles by Olivia Atwater. But at the same time, the metafictional framing makes the romance feel smaller, sometimes quite literally, with Goldman using his editorial commentary to step back and distance the reader from moments of greater intimacy (look up the reunion scene passage for a very effective example of this). This is a narrative that is interested in using romance as a framework for adventure and satire, more so than in the romance for its own sake. It was also written by a man, and its perspective on gender is in the traditional male-gaze mold; Westley might be a typical MMC, but Buttercup is very different from our typical FMCs. But this is exactly the kind of story that the genre of fantasy romance arose in response to, when women writers began turning the traditional fantasy adventure around, giving agency to the heroines and writing from their perspective. 

Biting the Sun

(review by u/Purplelicious )

>DO NOT BITE THE SUN,
TRAVELER,
YOU WILL BURN YOUR MOUTH

For this iteration of “Old but Gold” I travelled way back to 1977 for {Biting the Sun by Tanith Lee}, her debut novel – this version released in 1979 has both books of the duology {Don’t Bite the Sun} and {Drinking Sapphire Wine}. Tanith Lee is a huge name in the origins of Fantasy Romance and I may pick a few novels written by her over the years. I think the first books I read of her were her reimaginings of Snow White in the 80s. But many romantasy writers will call her out as an early influence and she has a huge body of work that is loved by romantasy, SF, Fantasy and Horror fans.

Don’t Bite the Sun, the first book in the duology, is an excellent example of new wave SFF that came out of the late 60s to 70s, when women, queer and other marginalized groups used speculative fiction as a place to play with allegorical themes and examine ideas that were not found in mainstream literature. 

The immediate feeling when beginning the novel was delight in being able to immerse into a strange futuristic world. maybe another planet but maybe Earth several millenial in the future, but it doesn’t matter. Humans live on a desert world in 3 large domed worlds – four BEE, four BAA and four BOO. No one actually dies anymore, technology has evolved to the point where a human’s life force, or ‘soul’ can be plopped back into any body of your choice. It also means that you can change your body at will, switching genders and looks as to your preference. The community is managed by robots and humans have nothing to do but live a life of complete hedonistic leisure. 

Don’t Bite the Sun is a coming-of-age novel, but do not dismiss it as young adult. The themes of late adolescence, at least the questions I asked myself, are there – the ennui of life, the pressure of society to conform, the disillusionment of friend circles and cliques, the realization that love and adoration of others is not enough to sustain one’s mental health. 

Overall these books are excellent. For a reader not used to early SFF there may be a bit of a learning curve being dropped into the story without much explanation, but the edition I had includes a glossary that explains some of the more confusing aspects like time units and customs, but there are many things that are not explained. The best way to read is to just jump in and immerse yourself in the story.

**Does it translate well into modern life? **
 Which makes this era of SFF so groundbreaking for portraying same sex relationships, gender fluidity, identity and sexuality. But the reader should understand that there were still aspects of transgenderism and sexuality that were not well defined.  A character that would be considered Asexual today is labeled as ‘Frigid’, which even then had a negative connotation.  Lee was not using the term as a slur, but because she had no other context to describe the state of the character.  As a mother to a gen Z, I love the way Lee captures the experimentation as the adolescent characters move from one identity to another, recognizing they may be predom fem or masc, regardless of their childhood state. 

**but is it romantasy?** 

In the 70s there wasn’t as big a distinction between SF and F, so the question should be “is this a romance” .  It’s not a typical modern romance with a list of recognizable tropes, but finding love is a major theme and there is a HEA for our main protagonist with another character.  There is plenty of sex, with just about anyone in any body, but the sex is closed door.  Now we have less sex but with explicit detail and strict rules over consent, no appearance of cheating, and much less promiscuity.  

DISCLAIMER: yes, I am discussing a romantic fantasy manhwa rather than a romantasy novel because I wrote this first for the r/OtomeIsekai but I think my points about tropes and how to use or not use them are valid for both western romantasy as for Asian rofan.

When a story feels underwhelming, uninspired and forgettable, tropes often get the blame. We say that a story is too tropey, or we say that this or that trope are overused, etc.

But it is not really the tropes’ fault. Tropes are on their own just narrative devices (the evil stepmother, the loyal childhood friend, the cursed prince etc) . They are a part of a writer’s toolbox as much as the choice of narrator, the ways the plot can be structured, or the rhetorical figures that can make the writing more poignant.

And even the most overused, predictable trope can become a brilliant element of a story, if the writer is skilled enough.

So, when does a writer use tropes well?

I would like to analyse the way one of the most overused and predictable tropes, the one of the “dead mother as origin story of a character” is used not once, not twice, but thrice in Mystic Prince, and try to explain why it still works.

***WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW***

(Seriously, if you haven’t read Mystic Prince yet, go and do it and come back to my post later.)

 

Lesson 1: chose the tropes that fit your story, don’t build stories around tropes

The major theme of Mystic Prince is how shitty women’s lives are in this East-Asian inspired fantasy world, how women are used, abused, silenced and discarded. It’s the reason why the protagonist, the FL, is so determined to win the throne and change things.

In this setting, the destiny of the three dead mothers whose stories we are told does not exist in a vacuum, just to provide some emotional scars to their children, but becomes a part of a larger narrative that shows how this world is cruel to women. It is very telling that the three dead mothers are the only mothers who appear in the story. All other women who could have been influential are just missing, because this is very much a man’s world. And this leads us to:

 

Lesson 2:  the more meanings and functions a trope has, the more it will feel integrated to the story and less obviously tropey.

In the case of Mystic Prince, the three dead mothers have multiple functions: they represent a key element of the childhood of their three children, the events who led to their death had a long lasting impact on how the children are as adults, and become part of the narrative of women’s oppression in a patriarchal society.

 

Lesson 3: if you are going to use a trope multiple times, do it in an intentional, meaningful way.

The three orphaned children of Mystic Prince are the FL, the ML, and the villain, that is, the three most important characters in the whole story. But the author doesn’t stop herself by just giving them a shared background: the symmetries between their pasts, but also the ways the differ (every mother has her own story), and the different ways the children reacted to their mother’s death is used to show why they become the people they are in the present.

 

Lesson 4: using tropes is fine, using whole pre-made clusters of tropes, not so much.

In otome isekai manhwas the dead mother trope tends to take the shape of: mother dies in childbirth – child gets blamed – father emotionally rejects the baby – everybody abuses the child, that is seen as “unlucky” and contemptible for just existing.

The FL, ML and villain of Mystic prince are all guilty of “killing” their mothers, but they have each their own story, and it doesn’t follow the expected cluster of tropes.

 

Lesson 5:  if you use a trope, subvert it.

All three children are guilty of “killing” their mother. But none of those death are the expected “mother dying giving birth” story.

The FL kills her mother accidentally, when she uses her powers for the first time trying to save her from the abusive father/husband. So yes, for once, we have a child who has really killed her mother, even if unintentionally.

The ML’s story is the one closest to the standard trope, because his mother dies giving birth to him, but with a twist: it’s not the labour killing her, but she is murdered because a political faction doesn’t want her to give birth to the son of the emperor.

And the villain causes his mother’s death by poisoning his father – the man who had abandoned both of them – and letting her take the blame.

But the subversion doesn’t end there. Nobody blames them for killing their mothers, as the expected pattern would predict. Instead the FL very much blames herself, and the ghost of her mother becomes the incarnation of all her self-doubt and feelings of worthlessness.

The ML does not get a relationship with his father, but not because the father blames him, but because the emperor blames himself for his wife’s death and is desperate to keep his son as safe as he can.

And as for the villain, his complete lack of guilt for killing both is parents is the defining moment that makes him a villain.

 

Lesson 6: if the trope requires the introduction of a secondary character, that character should be fleshed out.

I think this is the main reason Mystic Prince manages to pull the stunt of using the same trope three times. Each mother is not just “the dead mother”. Each of them is her own person. They have names (well, not the FL’s mother, but the others do) and they have their own story before they died, and these stories are very different.

The FL’s mother is the battered wife of a most despicable middle class man, who heroically tries her best to shield her daughters from their father’s violence, and teach them about love, and happiness even in the harshest circumstances.

The ML’s mother is a strong, fearless woman, who lives her own life freely in a world that is so cruel to women, but she can’t survive the plots and schemes of court and dies because of it and ends up entirely erased from existance, a damnatio memoriae that makes the ML’s childhood miserable.

The villain’s mother is a prostitute in a brothel. She is completely broken by the life she has to live and can only stare in the void like a beautiful broken doll, desired and then discarded. In the end, the only love she can show to her child is to refuse to acknowledge him as such, and take the fall for his actions.

Note how this variate characterisation reinforces the underlying theme of the story: there is no happiness for women in an oppressively patriarchal society. They can be prostitutes or empresses, they can marry the good guy, the bad guy, or not marry at all, but they are all doomed to be used, abused, and then silenced and forgotten. Nobody cares.

 

Lesson seven: deploy the trope at the most appropriate plot beat of the story for it.

And in case of multiple uses, variation is key. This is also done in a very skillful way in Mystic Prince.

The story of the FL’s mother is revealed in a series of progressively more heartwrenching flashbacks (at least three if I remember right) in the first third of the story which culminate into the test that forces the FL to face her innermost demons. And that event marks the moment where she slowly begins to make peace with herself and her guilt.

The ML instead had been stewing on his desire to know something, anything, about her mother for a very long time, and it is this longing that eventually leads him to finally face his father and asks for the truth. And so it is the emperor who tells him (and us), his wife’s story. It’s again a moment of character’s growth and reconciliation, but this time, between father and son.

The villain reveals his motives, and tell his story when his treachery has been revealed and he and the protagonist face off during the climax of the story. Only then we get to see how fucked up he is, and the depth of his crimes. It works very well because the readers are left wondering until then about who the real evil mastermind is and so his “origin story” is necessary to make all his actions understandable.

 

Moral of the story.

Let’s face the truth: when a story feels too tropey (and not in an intentional, playful way), or too predictable, or we think “ugh, not this trope again”, stop blaming the trope. Blame the actual culprit, the shitty writing and the clearly mediocre writer who wrote it.

When I was reading Mystic Prince, I didn't even noticed that I had been fed three fridged mothers (heaven know how much I hate an unskilled use of this trope), because they felt such a natural part of the story. Only with a cooler header after finishing it I saw the pattern and said "you sneaky, brilliant author, I see what you have done".

And if you have made it to the end of this, thank you for listening to my thoughts about how you do or don't use tropes and indulging my passion for literary analysis.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

{The Heart of Faerie by Rowan Parker}

My Review

First of all, I'll note this was written by a friend and I received an ARC. It was my first time ever receiving an ARC, and I definitely had some doubts based on the synopsis (and also the fear of "what if my friend wrote trash?")

I'm happy to report The Heart of Faerie is just a brilliant book. The premise is novel and focuses on a mother-daughter duo from the human world transported into Faerie. It's a dual-POV: The mom in her 40s, Jenn, failed as the chosen one in a prophecy in Faerie, and her daughter Vivi is a 19 year old college student obsessed with the romantasy genre. The novel starts with Vivi being accidentally kidnapped to Faerie by her mother’s old quest companions, two Fae named Alastair and Killian.

The book does parody so many tropes based on Vivi’s expectations of how Faerie works from her romantasy books, but calling this book a parody would be an insult. Yes, it's funny, but there was so much heart and emotional stakes beyond the premise. I choked up a few times. The novel does a phenomenal job of discussing the very real effects of trauma, namely PTSD.

All of the main characters are well-written and distinct, and even the side characters are well-designed and memorable. I particularly love the relationship building the Rowan Parker does between the four main characters. It's believable and the conflicts and resolutions feel real. While the plot and world building are great, the relationships are what really drove the book for me. 

All in all, this was a five star read for me. I’m so happy I got an advanced reader copy to review, but I’m also sad that I will have to wait even longer for the next one in the trilogy.

Synopsis from the Author's Site:

>
When Alastair, playboy fae prince and bisexual disaster, and his stoic, snarky bestie Killian travel to the human realm to retrieve the prophesied Chosen One, they abduct Vivi Pierce to save their home from a sinister, ancient curse. Vivi may be a nineteen-year-old college student, but fortunately for Faerie, she’s eager to save the world. In fact, she's pretty sure that she could ride a dragon or help perform a coup, should the need arise. She has, after all, read every romantasy novel she’s ever gotten her hands on. She knows every trope in the book.

The only problem? Vivi isn't actually the Chosen One, and this kidnapping isn’t the meet-cute that she thought it was. It turns out the Chosen One is actually her middle-aged mother Jenn, and the fae men grabbed the wrong woman. Now, instead of leading the charge to save the world, becoming inexplicably good at combat through a quick training montage, and getting seduced by a sexy, impossibly-old fae love interest, Vivi has to contend with the fact that her 40-something year old mother may be the real Main Character in this story. Worse yet, it looks like Jenn has known about the existence of Faerie for years, purposely hid that knowledge from her daughter, and that maybe Vivi's books have gotten more than a few things terribly wrong.

Plot Attributes

• Portal Fantasy
• Dual POV (mother-daughter)
• Blond bisexual himbo MMC
• Stoic and gentle MMC
• Older FMC (40s)
• Subverted tropes galore!

This book was recommended to me as fantasy romance similar to the Emily Wilde series but I’m about 30% of the way through it and I have yet to see even a hint of romance. I was just wondering if there is actually any romance in this book even if it’s more of a subplot. If so, does the book have HEA?

Don’t get me wrong, this book is great so far, even without romance. I’m just in a very specific mood right now. I’ve been going through a rough time in my personal life and I’m looking for something that’s more cozy and has a happy ending. I was hoping for something similar to Emily Wilde. Romance doesn’t have to be front and center but I’d like there to be at least some romantic aspect to the book. If not, I might put this one on hold for a bit while I’m dealing with everything that’s currently going on in my life.

Without too many spoilers, I’d also like to know if this book gets really dark or has a sad ending? I realize that it is dark academia but obviously there are varying degrees of dark depending on the book. I’m just feeling very sensitive and easily upset right now because of everything I’m going through in my personal life. I want to make sure that I’m taking care of myself and not reading something that is going to damage my mental health even more right now. Thank you all for any help you can offer!