A Taste of Honey by Kai Ashante Wilson
My rating: 4/5 cats
i liked this one much more than The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps. which is surprising, since it’s basically a romance with some fantasy overlay, and i’ve never been a big fan of romance tales. the relationship is m/m, so it’s less harlequin, more meaty (heh), but yeah – it’s a fairly traditional story of star-crossed lovers whose passion is beset by social obstacles and familial obligations of the arranged-marriage variety set in the same world as The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps and maybe the free tor short Super Bass.
also, this one has a cheetah, and all books (and lives) are improved by a cat’s presence.
the fantasy parts here are more comprehensible than in wildeeps, for someone like me so easily flummoxed by fantasy. there’s a bit that’s still unclear, but it didn’t hinder my enjoyment at all, and i was impressed by how much actual story there is crammed into these 158 pages.
the only thing i didn’t love was the conflict it bred in me – i loved the reveal, and i loved the character of lucretia, and if you’ve read this, you know what a complicated stew of emotions this two-pronged love provokes in a reader.
speaking of two prongs, the romance is solid. it’s a little too ‘love at first sight,’ but circumstances being what they are, it slots well into the “whirlwind holiday romance” tradition (or “fleet week flirtation,” if you prefer), and the characters are well-matched and likable, making it easy to root for true love to conquer all. and such.
things go off into unexpected directions, both chronologically and dramatically, taking the reader through waves of emotional highs and lows that go very low, indeed, but it wraps up nicely, although something about it feels like the ending to some 80’s cartoon in tone.
which is not a bad thing, it just awoke a strangely specific, long-dormant visceral response in me.
i still love this author’s free tor short(ish) The Devil in America best of all, but that’s probably because it is the least “fantasy” of his works, and by FAR the darkest and cruelest, which is where i like to read best. but his writing is excellent, so i’d pretty much read anything he came out with next, whether it’s another fantasy, a space opera adventure, or a YA novel about mean girl cliques. such is my faith in him.
