even as his rational mind supposed that such an adventure could only end in mugging or murder, his Romantic soul stretched its withered wings and soared at the notion of leaving the suffocating fog of Staple Inn behind to venture out into the wilderness beneath the full moon. Furthermore, if he did end up murdered, it meant he’d never have to copy out another account-book again. [loc. 527]
Shrike is a faerie knight, a mercenary whose prowess in battle attracts the attention of the Faerie Queen. He is not given a choice about becoming the Oak King, destined to die in single combat with the Holly King and thus ensure the turning of the seasons -- but he can attempt magic to save himself. And that magic leads him to the unprepossessing figure of Wren Lofthouse, a clerk in Staple's Inn, a man who dreams of romance between Gawain and his Green Knight, who's estranged from his family and friends but, at least, has steady employment with the affable Mr Grigsby. Wren's employer would probably cast him off if he knew his clerk was a sodomite, prone to sketching handsome men in erotic poses -- though Grigsby indulges his ward, Felix, an unlikeable and profligate but performatively heterosexual young fellow.
This is a sweet romance, with the emphasis very much on Wren and Shrike's growing regard for, and trust in, one another. Wren is smart and creative (he repurposes a sigil from his copy of Gawain and the Green Knight to provide protection for Shrike; he hypothesises that, the last time the Oak King and the Holly King didn't duel, the mortal world endured 1816, the Year Without a Summer) while Shrike is centuries old, a mighty warrior, and at home with magic. The wider world that Nothwell depicts is rich with detail: the leather masks Shrike makes for the fae, the Ambassador from the Court of Spindles, the delightful Nell and her entourage of nymphs, the velvet shedding from the antlers Shrike grows. And the mortal world is no less vivid, with Grigsby's other ward Miss Flora Fairfield, who is not what she seems; with mystical gateways from fairyland to Rochester; with guardsmen loitering near the statue of Achilles in Hyde Park, hoping to find like-minded companions for the night; with Wren, who never seems to do any work, but is given to sketching handsome knights in the margins of his account books.
I felt the last few chapters were a little rushed, and perhaps there was slightly too much plot. (A rare complaint!) There were many threads to keep track of, some tied off more neatly than others. The language was occasionally overwrought and faux-archaic ('the fae gazed on him not with censure or derision'): Nothwell also uses the Old English spelling of girdle ('gyrdel') throughout, which vexed me. But on the whole this was a charming and vivid fantasy romance, featuring sexual encounters more magically imbued than is usual in romance.
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