{"id":891,"date":"2022-07-19T16:22:41","date_gmt":"2022-07-19T14:22:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/erikawinterlia.com\/?p=891"},"modified":"2022-07-19T16:22:42","modified_gmt":"2022-07-19T14:22:42","slug":"a-taste-of-gold-and-iron","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erikawinterlia.com\/?p=891","title":{"rendered":"A Taste of Gold and Iron"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Alexandra Rowland.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this book we follow Kadou, the shy prince of Arasht, and his bodyguards as they investigate a break-in and tries to find the source of counterfeit money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, this is a somewhat hard review to write because I\u2019m honestly not sure what the book was about. It\u2019s a book with some great elements, but also some less great ones. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s start with the plot. There\u2019s some sort of mystery at the core of this story. Counterfeit money has been found, and Kadou must find where they are from before this money spreads and his country loses its good reputation. It\u2019s a good premise, but it\u2019s like nothing happens. Things move at such a slow pace that we lose what\u2019s happening and it all just becomes confusing, and every twist that happens are so obvious that it doesn\u2019t even feel like a twist. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I kept reading and reading and it felt like I\u2019d been doing so forever, and then I was still at just 20% or something. It was a pain to get through at times because there was nothing interesting happening. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end, the plot didn\u2019t do anything for the story and it would have been the same story without the mystery element. I rather think it would have benefitted from being a straight up romance with more details and focus on that part. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, let\u2019s talk about the romance. This is a male\/male romance, and there are a lot of queer characters and non-binary individuals in a world where this seems to be the norm and there\u2019s no mention of this being a problem for anyone. This I love. I think it\u2019s great to have this representation and for queerness and all that to be just part of normal life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I do, however, have some minor issues with the way things were portrayed here. First of all, it often times felt a little like \u201clook how inclusive I am\u201d instead of these details feeling like a natural part of the story. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then we have the ex boyfriend who goes from an interesting character to what can best be described as a caricature of himself. He ended up like the over the top gay friend in bad soap operas who just calls everyone darling and flicks his hand in a dramatic way when speaking. Which would have been fine if the characters also felt like a complete person who wasn\u2019t just there to be the comical gay friend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And while we\u2019re on the topic of romance. This romance reads like a woman\u2019s fantasy of m\/m relationships rather than a proper romance. I can\u2019t really tell what it was about the way the more intimate scenes were written that made it feel this way, but there was nothing there between the characters. It didn\u2019t feel real. And the characters didn\u2019t even really feel like men in certain parts. Sure, men can be feminine, but this, this was something else. At times it was almost like the when we make fun of the way men write women in books, only here it was a woman writing some strange, exaggerated version of sexy men. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The romance is said to be slow burn in this book, but honestly it\u2019s not. There\u2019s really no burn at all. It goes from absolutely nothing to instalust, and then all of a sudden the characters are madly in love? No. There needs to be tension, not nothing and then everything at once. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was also basically no worldbuilding in this book, and for the most part it was just extremely confusing. And we were given no context to what was happening, and sometimes there could be pages upon pages or some random information that had nothing to do with anything. Like some speech about currency that make no sense at all and just made me feel like I was back in some boring class. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Towards the end things did move a little faster though, especially when it came to the romance, and I has somewhat started to enjoy reading the book despite its flaws. Then, however, I realized I was suddenly at 98% and the book was about to end and it felt like there was tons of more things that needed to be resolved. And I suppose they were resolved, in the last 2%, but then it just felt extremely rushes and strange. Especially considering we spent 98% of the book going absolutely nowhere. There was time to spread things out at an even and pace that would have made the whole thing an enjoyable read. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, I\u2019m ultimately going to give this book 3\/5 stars and put it in the category of decent books I don\u2019t regret reading, but will never pick up again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do I recommend reading it? Sure. If you like romance, queerness, slow paced books with a hint of mystery, then I\u2019m sure you\u2019ll enjoy this one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Alexandra Rowland.\u00a0 In this book we follow Kadou, the shy prince of Arasht, and his bodyguards as they investigate a break-in and tries to find the source of counterfeit money. So, this is a somewhat hard review to write because I\u2019m honestly not sure what the book was about. It\u2019s a book with some great elements, but also some less great ones.  Let\u2019s start with the plot. There\u2019s some sort of mystery at the core of this story. Counterfeit money has been found, and Kadou must find where they are from before this money spreads and his country loses its good reputation. It\u2019s a good premise, but it\u2019s like nothing happens. Things move at such a slow pace that we lose what\u2019s happening and it all just becomes confusing, and every twist that happens are so obvious that it doesn\u2019t even feel like a twist.  I kept reading and reading and it felt like I\u2019d been doing so forever, and then I was still at just 20% or something. It was a pain to get through at times because there was nothing interesting happening.  In the end, the plot didn\u2019t do anything for the story and it would have…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":892,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[19,32,31,4],"wppr_data":{"cwp_meta_box_check":"Yes","cwp_rev_product_name":"A Taste of Gold and Iron","_wppr_review_template":"default","cwp_rev_product_image":"http:\/\/erikawinterlia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/atasteofgoldandiron.jpeg","cwp_image_link":"image","wppr_links":[],"cwp_rev_price":"","wppr_pros":["Inclusive","M\/M romance","Great premise"],"wppr_cons":["Very slow","Little to no world building","Uneven pacing"],"wppr_rating":"56.00","wppr_options":{"1":{"name":"Overall","value":"55"},"2":{"name":"Plot","value":"50"},"3":{"name":"Characters","value":"55"},"4":{"name":"Writing","value":"60"},"5":{"name":"Ending","value":"60"}},"wppr_review_type":"Product","wppr_review_custom_fields":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikawinterlia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikawinterlia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikawinterlia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikawinterlia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikawinterlia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=891"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/erikawinterlia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":893,"href":"https:\/\/erikawinterlia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891\/revisions\/893"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikawinterlia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikawinterlia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikawinterlia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikawinterlia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}