I loved how the romanced turned out in the second part of the book. The characters are well drawn and their relationship beautiful. ( )

I loved how the romanced turned out in the second part of the book. The characters are well drawn and their relationship beautiful. ( )

This was a pretty entertaining story, and I'm excited to read the follow-up book by this author. While I enjoyed it overall, especially the relationship between Kiem and Jainan, I feel it's easier to articulate the few critiques I had. Really I think it would have been perfect if both the sci-fi aspects and the romance aspects had been expanded juuust a bit further. It felt like the author didn't want to go too far in one direction or the other and got stuck in the middle, but I think both aspects could have been expanded on.

I found it to be pretty slow in the first 60%, which seemed to be building the romance between the two leads but it was glacially slow. And then the mystery plot finally started kicking it up faster, so it felt like more was finally happening as far as plot.

This was kind of marketed as a sci-fi romance but it's really more of a space opera murder mystery with a romantic subplot. The romantic subplot was honestly the best part about it but I just wanted more from this story in all aspects. I wanted more to be said and done about the past marital abuse of Jainan and his healing through Kiem, and I wanted more to be said and done about the colonialism perpetrated by the Empire. ( )

review to come
Prince Kiem has been told he will marry the widower Jainan in order to keep a treaty between their two planets active. They know nothing of one another other than Jainan was married to a cousin of Kiem’s that he wasn’t close to. They need to show a happy treaty marriage to the world in order to keep politics going. Since this is a political alliance that must be seen as a love match there is a lot of miscommunications between them both due to the abusive details of the previous marriage. And there is a subplot that has Jainan believe that Prince Taam was murdered and not just died in a work accident. But Prince Taam worked on a secret project and kept the details from him, and no one trusts Jainan since he is an outsider. This is a bit of a romance with both parties being attracted to one another but each believing the other isn’t interested and being respectful of each other. ( )

First: Yay library books!!!

Second, man this story is compelling! That means that for me it was nothing like the comparison titles. Ancillary Justice bored me to tears, and I couldn't even get very far into Red, White, and Royal Blue because I disliked one of the MCs.

No, Winter's Orbit is its own story, and it is well worth reading. So much happens! But, at its core is
the conflict between these guys, these two political chess pieces. It's INTENSE. Not because either wants conflict, but because they misinterpret each other. One is hardwired into making these mistakes, and the other's past abuse keeps him misreading the prince's motives. It's uncomfortable and heartbreaking. I don't even like political intrigue usually, but this with the relationship? Really compelling. Highly recommended

Other stuff:

For those who want on-page sex, there isn't any, it's fade-to-black. I didn't miss it at all. This is a great book for any teen although it's adult; there's also minimal violence.

Some minor complaints: The one real flaw I noticed is the author left in cliché phrases that are unlikely in this distant-worlds society. And, in the second half, there are too many descriptions that include "treacle". (Worldbuilding is hard. And editing a novel is hard. So.)

Content Warning: domestic abuse (past scenes replayed) ( )