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Fantasy. Fiction. Historical Fiction. LGBTQIA+ (Fiction.) HTML: A Power Unbound is the final entry in Freya Marske's beloved, award-winning Last Binding trilogy, the queer historical fantasy series that began with A Marvellous Light. "A breathtaking romp of a plot, prose as sparkling and luxuriant as a diamond sautoir, and at the heart of it all a sense of wondrous possibility."�The New York Times on A Restless Truth "Stunning�the writing is lush, the world-building is fascinating, and the romance is searing hot. I am completely obsessed with this story of unrepentantly dangerous people falling in love with one another."�Cat Sebastian, author of The Queer Principles of Kit Webb A Most Anticipated Book for Paste and BookPageSecrets! Magic! Enemies to. . .something more? Jack Alston, Lord Hawthorn, would love a nice, safe, comfortable life. After the death of his twin sister, he thought he was done with magic for good. But with the threat of a dangerous ritual hanging over every magician in Britain, he's drawn reluctantly back into that world. Now Jack is living in a bizarre puzzle-box of a magical London townhouse, helping an unlikely group of friends track down the final piece of the Last Contract before their enemies can do the same. And to make matters worse, they need the help of writer and thief Alan Ross. Cagey and argumentative, Alan is only in this for the money. The aristocratic Lord Hawthorn, with all his unearned power, is everything that Alan hates. And unfortunately, Alan happens to be everything that Jack wants in one gorgeous, infuriating package. When a plot to seize unimaginable power comes to a head at Cheetham Hall�Jack's ancestral family estate, a land so old and bound in oaths that it's grown a personality as prickly as its owner�Jack, Alan and their allies will become entangled in a night of champagne, secrets, and bloody sacrifice . . . and the foundations of magic in Britain will be torn up by the roots before the end. A Macmillan Audio production from Tor.com..… (more)
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Two areas Ms. Marske handles with delicacy are Jack's peerage and his sexual preferences. Alan Ross may be his form of heroin, but the dynamics between the two are fraught with political tension as well as sexual. Alan is so angry towards the titled and entitled that he practically spits fire at his new friends. To Alan, Jack is everything he hates, which makes their physical relationship tricky.
Jack already exudes a natural dominance in everything he does and says. Because of who he is, Jack already has all the power in any relationship. Yet, Ms. Marske handles the dom/sub aspect of their mutual attraction with sensitivity. Sex scenes have come a long way over the decades, and Ms. Marske is one of the best at showing how consent and safe words are sexy.
While I admire how well Ms. Marske builds Jack's and Alan's relationship, I did struggle with the ending of The Last Binding series. I feel it is too anticlimactic, but now that I think about it, maybe that is the point. The theme of A Power Unbound is a few select people should not hold a majority of anything. Alan constantly preaches this idea to Jack and anyone else who will listen. Given this, I probably should have expected the resolution to the magical crisis.
In fact, I'm now beginning to think that A Power Unbound and the rest of the series are somewhat of a modern-day anti-capitalist/anti-monarchy manifesto. I don't know how I didn't see this before, but I like it. And if Ms. Marske meant for her series to have this message, I applaud her. She created a series that is fun, sexy, and engaging while also sneaking in a fantastic lesson about the importance of sharing with the less fortunate.
Advanced Reader's Copy provided by Edelweiss.
While the beginning started of exciting and fast paced, the story slowed down a lot with not really that much happening compared with the other two books.
There was a lot of waiting and not
And even though I do understand that Ms Marske wanted to concentrate in each book on a different romantic pairing, it does not really work in this instalment. In the first book we had only Robin and Edward, in the second only Maud and Violet, but now we have the third pairing while the other two pairs are around but getting no attention really which is kind of frustrating as I of course would have loved to hear what they are doing now in their day to day life for example.
Also, Jack was in the first two books the mysterious broody character but there is something with his pairing up, which rubs me the wrong way, without being really able to say why. Maybe the whole set up feels too forced? (The sex scenes are much better than the one from the first book though, much less cringy, here Ms Marske grew a lot in her writing.)
I have to say, that curious enough, the second book is my fave, then the first and this one I liked the least.