Book Peck - The Price of Redemption

Hello, darklings! It’s BOOK PECK TIME!

So this week, I have had the pleasure of finishing The Price of Redemption by Shawn Carpenter. And just, overall….!

I fell in love with the characters. 

I became intrigued with the plot. 

Loved the prose! Like, this was literary dessert.

I called the author a sumuvabatch. Out loud. (This is actually a compliment.) 

I was chuffed to bits at the gender and queer equality all throughout.

I love a book with a map, glossary, and world articles to refer to. Makes my nerdy brain go brr!

It deviated some from formula, and yet I was satisfied. I was even more satisfied because of the deviation.

Just by and large, this delivered.

I want more, of course, and luckily for me, this is just book one in the Tides of Magic series and the second is being worked on. But this first book? (Chef kiss) I’m just glad I stumbled on this author’s debut work via the capricious channels of Discord. 

First off, what makes every book worth the reading? The characters!  

This book has a slew of well-formed characters, good, bad, and in between, with people who are easy to love, and people we love to hate. Even side characters are not the usual paper cut outs to fill space. We often get to see perception shifts to other surprising point of views and get great insights from the outside looking in on the political landscape (seascape?) and our protagonist odd couple.

I say couple, but curb your expectations. You know how these stories trend. A beautiful, hapless lady winds up on a ship with a tall, ruggedly, handsome stoic or debonair captain, and a tense relationship gives way to lusty romance with little friendship in between.

(Throws that story to the side.)

(Hurries over to pick up the story and brushes off, hugs to chest, apologizing.)

Listen, I love a well-done sea romance. But, satan-love-me, this was better. I didn’t know how flocking starved I was to read a deep friendship development between lady and gent until I realized, holy spit, these two protags are going to develop a working relationship first and foremost.

And what protags they are! First up, the Marquese Enid d’Tancreville.

I admit, I was worried at the introduction of the first protagonist. Enid is a noble, she knows it, acts it, has a lot to be bitter over, and that can be very off-putting. She is one of those tall, scary beauties you want to admire from afar and hope never to exchange words with, because it’s not certain when she’s in a mood to verbally eviscerate someone (which she does in delightful ways at times). However, this makes a perfect evolutionary slate, and you can see immediately that she doesn’t wish good people ill. She’s not some wilting poppet, all talk and no action. She’s fierce in her learning, mentally and physically. Knowledge is her obvious avarice, and she is a wiling student to all reasonable things. 

And that last, that willingness to admit her ignorance and adjust her thinking (not overnight, but realistically bit by bit), is what makes me admire her. Plus her intent focus on learning gives a perfect means by which we, the readers, can learn more about the world of Andreth, its many striving factions, and the life of sea-faring.

Also the magic craft she possesses is cool as Puck, and she gets to introduce us to its more scientific workings as well. I love a good magic system!

But, oh my devil, let me wax poetic about Lieutenant Commander Rue Nath. 

This little upstart stole my heart first page he was on screen. (Yes, one of my favorite hearts I keep in a jar by the bed, the thief!)

Firstly, Rue you can immediately see is a fantastic leader, like the kind you always wish you could get for a boss or project manager, but are, alas, very shorthanded in the world. He is so enthusiastic about his crew, crows about their accomplishments, and always includes them as part of why he succeeds at sea. That alone would secure my adoration. 

AND HE’S A SHORT KING! Be still my beating hearts! (Yes, please, before you all rattle your jars off the shelves!) 

Again, I don’t mind a well-written sea story of the tall, rugged captain of few words, but, nnf, I will take Nath over them every time because he’s unique, vivacious, commanding, and has such a presence. You want to root for him in all things. Like, I need this guy to win, and I’m devastated when he doesn’t. 

I love him so much, I hope he gets hurt in horrible ways. 

(Yes, how much I want to see a character get emotionally and physically maimed is an accurate scale to determine how much I like them. I’m perfectly normal that way, thank you very much.)

Now, to the prose!

This book has some superb word smithing. I haven’t gotten to lap up such diversity in language in some time, and it has reminded me why I love our baffling English. This book has a banquet of oft forgotten words, even archaic ones that I would delight in seeing come back into use, as well as many mysterious nautical terms defined in the glossary. The prose echoes the pattern of speech in the era without being overbearing in length or ostentatious, striking a good balance for world immersion without losing legibility. (If you have read how people wrote in the 1700’s, you know exactly what I’m talking about.) 

And a novel that enthusiastically demonstrates a world of queer and gender equality? (Clutches colorful goblin heart-space, swooning.) This is a fantasy world, but something I dearly hope we accomplish Earth-wide. It’s a glimpse into what that could look like if those bigotries didn’t exist. It’s so standard in this world, it’s not even noteworthy in many cases because it is so normal. And the book just pulls it off with such smooth ease. 

Also, some writing doesn’t pull off action scenes well. Not a worry in this book. Action scenes are fantastic. 

Now, Nuts and Bolts!

This book is traditionally published, and they did their good work on editing. You’re not going to find any sloppy grammar or prose here. There are a few points where the plot slows down, but it's so packed with character observations and development as Enid settles into her new role, there is still nothing I'd count as wasted space. The only thing that tripped me up at all, and only briefly, was that chapters would have internal point of views for more than one character at times, and while I’m leery of this, it’s 1) not a written-in-stone rule, and 2) it did work well to avoid doubling back to explain the other character’s inner workings next chapter. 

This book also has a lot of set up so we know this is just the tip of the iceberg for this setting. There is serious trouble likely to visit in future novels. While not everything resolves here, I was still satisfied and left super looking forward to how things will play out for our two protagonists in the next book.

So Big Goblin Lick of approval! Several, even! Enjoy.