This was nominated for a Nebula award for 2020. Not sure why. Not that it's a bad book. It's reasonably fun to read.
But it's pretty much a standard romance novel, maybe elevated a little bit. The setting is basically Regency England, though all country names and geography are changed. Lots of attention to the layers and layers of clothing that wealthy women of the time wear. Including its social implications--the stays and stomachers that forced women into artificial shapes.Women are severely oppressed in Chasland, prevented from studying magic and forced to dull their powers with "warding collars" due to very real danger to unborn babies. The danger is spun into a whole social structure that oppresses women. Pretty familiar. It's an uplifting story, and would have been a cutting-edge plot 80 years ago. Not so much now. The author does try to flip the racial script, but having the desirable people be dark-skinned with no other discussion of racial dynamics at all doesn't really help.
It's a fun read, a little slow early on but it picks up. The ending is a bit pat, romance-novel style. 2.5 stars rounded up.
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