Radiance by Grace Draven is the book of the month for Vaginal Fantasy. I am beginning to despair over the choices made for that particular book club. It’s not that Radiance is bad exactly, it’s just a ridiculous piece of fluff that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense once you start to think about various plot elements.
Brishen Khaskem is a prince of the Kai and Ildiko is a human noble woman of a neighboring kingdom. The kai and humans find each other to be repulsive, but the two are bound by an arranged marriage designed to cement the newly forged treaty between their two peoples. A neighboring human country, one constantly in skirmishes with Ildiko’s kingdom isn’t particularly fond of this arrangement and Kai’s mother puts Disney witches to shame with her evil machinations. Can these two overcome their racial distaste for each other, the plotting of various political groups and find love in each other’s arms?
Honestly the romance element of the novel is really quite sweet. It’s easily the most enjoyable part of the novel. Watching the romance bloom between these two was quite believable. It’s a love built on mutual respect and admiration, and that’s really the best kind of romance.
However the racial distaste for each other that the Kai and humans have doesn’t always make sense. It’s mentioned briefly that the two species have intermarried at other times, but the two parties almost come to blows during the marriage vows of Brishen and Ildiko. It’s conflict created for the sake of conflict, and to show how awesome Ildiko is. And there are a couple of things like that peppered throughout the book. Once I started to think about various conflicts they fell apart beneath logic.
It’s an ok novel and I breezed through it quickly enough. It’s certainly a harmless, fluffy book. But I’m not particularly feeling the need to pick up the next one. It’s a 2.5 star book for sure, enjoyable but only if you don’t think about it. My main complaint is that it feels very much like someone fell in love with the Drow elves of D&D and decided to write a novel about them, without calling them drow.
We are very different people. To me, this was a clear 5-star read, and I am really wanting to read more about the characters, and in the fantasy universe Draven created. Based on the ending of this, I’m hoping the sequel isn’t all grimness and depression, though.
I loved the characters. And the romance was great. But it just felt too much like a D&D knock off world. I mean the main character all but casts darkness. A point at which I collapsed into giggles.
As I have absolutely no experience with role playing games of any kind, this was not even a factor for me to consider. I liked the world-building, I liked how the author just introduced names of places, peoples, creatures and traditions without info dumping too much and just assumed the reader would catch on and understand . I absolutely loved the romance and interaction between the main characters, the way they worked and communicated clearly to work through their races’ prejudices and superstitions and how their relationship started with a foundation of friendship and mutual respect, that grew into affection, love and later passion.
But see, that ‘throw the reader into the world and let them sort it out’ part of the novel is fairly common in fantasy. In fact, I hate info dumps quite a bit because I’m so accustomed to working out the ways this particular fantasy world works. But getting into the gritty parts of the world building and it really didn’t work for me at all. For a couple of reasons.
1- if a race is so bothered by sunlight that they live in the night and see fine by moonlight, why do they have candles and torches. If it’s specifically for the human in their midst, that needs to be mentioned. And there are a couple of times where it’s in the middle of the day and she mentions that she can’t see. It’s weird. Yes, you can shutter out some sunlight, but ALL of it? Especially in a room that has windows/a balcony?
2- the food thing wasn’t handled consistently. I thought it was a nice touch, and really wish it had been done better. When it was from his POV all the human food seemed inedible and gross (not just the potato) . When it got to her side, it was really just the one dish. A dish that was a delicacy (and a delicacy that some Kai don’t like) and not a common everyday food. The rest of their food was just a bit more spiced (if I remember correctly) There’s also an inconsistency in that he had eaten dinner with humans on previous occasions, so he had to know what their food was like (even if said human had weird tastes). But when we’re first introduced he’s shocked at how unappetizing it is.
3- the ‘ugliness’ of the races came down to eyes, teeth, and skin. That works, kind of, but I have a hard time believing it would elicit the kind of reactions displayed by characters over and over. Especially as I’ve seen cosplays of similar looks that are actually quite beautiful. But the underlying bone structure, which really is a major factor in beauty, seems to be similar across both races. So again, hideously ugly? I don’t buy it. Disconcerting and unusual, yes but not so ugly you can’t imagine marrying a person of that race. I liked what she was doing here, showing two souls connecting on a non-physical level, but again, it just didn’t work completely.
4- if your character is important enough to marry off to cement an alliance, even if it’s a marriage that you give to the least important person that you can, she’s important enough to protect her virginity if that’s important in your culture. I get that Draven didn’t want to play out the ‘virgin gets sex for the first time’ trope in this novel, and I applaud that. But it didn’t make logical sense. If you’re going to do pseudo medieval court rules, then you need to follow the rules of a medieval court. Even the ones you don’t really like.
Like I said, it’s a fun, light, frothy read. But the moment I start to apply critical thinking to it, it falls apart.
Oh, I absolutely agree on a lot of your points, they’re just not things that in any way bothered me when I was reading, as I tend to connect very much emotionally with books first, logically second. If I’m immersed enough in the book that any flaws don’t become obviously apparent, and any niggles I have don’t bother me overmuch even a few days afterwards, then I’m probably going to still really like the book.
You’re not wrong about the light thing, the exaggerated ugliness (from races that are still compatible enough to mate and have intermarried more than once, the light thing and certainly about her virginity. I raised an eyebrow at that, because she was the king’s niece and ain’t no way there would have been all that many other ladies at court more highly born and available for political marriages than that. But on the flip side, I enjoyed that they didn’t have to do the awkward deflowering on top of figuring out how to work around teeth and claws.