Review: Luck in the Shadows

Luck in the Shadows by Lynn Flewelling
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

That was a delight to read! And quite surprisingly so, which makes the experience so much more precious.

The starting point is simple and commonplace; our two heroes meet in prison, one of them is innocent and one guilty, and make their escape together. But the plot spirals up from there to unexplicable intricacies.

I had put this book on my to-read list for educational and historical reasons, because I read that it was the very first fantasy with gay characters set in a world, where it's acceptable. According to Wikipedia, the author states that "gender issues are generally a strong theme for me...I think I created Seregil just to see if he'd work -- a gay hero, and a gay character who wasn't tragic, evil, victimized, or a bit player thrown in for color." I feel like she has really succeded in that. Most of the lgbt books are either tragic or porn, but this one is exceptional, offering the hero's orientation as a part of the carefully build world, not the sum of it.

I didn't expect so much from this book, which wasn't even published as a hardcover. The writing is great, the editing is good, the plot is intriguing, and the characters step from the pages right into the imagination, so alive and vibrant.

My only regret is that the story was conceived as a series, so the book ends with a cliff-hanger. Where is that second volume?!?

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