The Traitor's Mercy by Iris Foxglove (The Starian Cycle #1)
In the court of Staria, mercy is rarely a blessing…
Sabre de Valois is the last of his line. Saved from the gallows while his family hangs for treason, Sabre is given the chance to pay off their debt and clear his family name. To do so, he must serve as a courtesan in the pleasure district, but the only House willing to take him in and risk the disfavor of the king is the House of Onyx, which caters to the darker desires of the Starian noble elite. There, he finds his masochism is an asset, the courtesans are kinder than the nobles of the Starian court, and that he cannot help but be inexorably drawn to the owner of the House of Onyx, Laurent de Rue.
Lord Laurent de Rue knows that love is dangerous. Abandoned in the pleasure district with no memory of his past, Laurent clawed his way to notoriety and earned his title through cunning and skill. He has seen love ruin the lives and ambitions of those he passed on his way to the top, and he has no intention of letting himself fall prey to the same mistakes. Yet he can’t stop himself from growing closer to Sabre de Valois, who loves so earnestly and so completely that even Laurent’s steel will is starting to break.
But Sabre has secrets of his own, and when the machinations of the court threaten to put Sabre in danger, Laurent will have to decide whether he will risk it all for love, or let Sabre de Valois slip through his fingers.
(Please note: The Traitor’s Mercy is an m/m dark fantasy novel, set in a fictional world where the kink aspect is not intended as a representation of real-life BDSM practices or dynamics.
Please be advised that while this title features a happy ending, it contains darker elements that some readers may find uncomfortable. It is intended for adult, mature readers only. )
PUBLISHER: Self-Published
YEAR: 2021
LENGTH: 256 pages
AGE: Adult
GENRE: Fantasy, Paranormal Romance
RECOMMENDED: Highly
Queer Rep Summary: Gay/Achillean Main Character(s), Bi/Pan Secondary Character(s).
THE TRAITOR'S MERCY is a refreshing take on magically-enforced sub/dom dynamics in a fantasy setting. It decouples those fantastical dynamics from their usual setting (werewolves in paranormal romance) and does it so effortlessly that I fully was immersed in this world as I read. In the world of THE TRAITOR'S MERCY, all adults have come into their identity as either submissive or dominant, and this has implications far beyond the bedroom. There are tensions over the fact that the crown prince is a submissive, and lingering animosity from some nobles over the fact that Sabre's father was a submissive, just as Sabre himself is.
I don't want to get too into the weeds over how everything works, especially since the details unfold gradually and aren't treated like some kind of magic system. After Sabre's life is torn apart and he is sent to the House of Onyx as a whore, he starts to come into his own, understanding that submissive does not mean weak, that his masochistic nature can be not just an asset but a source of pleasure under the right hands. Laurent is head of the House of Onyx and doesn't want to take advantage of Sabre's position but can't stay away from him (nor does Sabre want him to).
There's a strong focus on characters, mainly on those who live in the House of Onyx. They may not have much of a life outside the House, but their days are spent in their own pursuits even as their nights are spent as sex workers servicing the nobility. Because of the position from which he fell, many of Sabre's clients are there to abuse and degrade him, to reassure themselves that they could never fall so far and to see that he is properly punished and cowed for being part of a traitorous family.
The gaps and mismatches between how Sabre and Laurent are expected to behave and actually present are challenging their society's norms. They show, merely by existing, that certain stereotypes about who will be submissive and dominant are not universally true. Even as many of the nobles are upset by the idea that anyone who is not dominant could have some kind of advantage over them, they previously would have been upset to know that Laurent, when he was still a courtesan, was hiding his dominant nature. The nobles want to pretend that dominance as a personal trait always equates to power in a political and personal sense. It probably could if literally everyone thought that way, but they don't, and that frustrates many of the nobles.
This is the first book in a series which seems set up to have a different protagonist in each book, or at least to not keep the same pair for consecutive books. I particularly enjoy this way of building a series because it continues to establish the world without requiring there to be some kind of crisis in a previously established relationship just to move the series forward. This doesn't mean of course that any series that keeps the same protagonist will have that problem, but that the episodic nature of this kind of series gives me that reassurance just through its structure.
Things I love, in no particular order: The various members of the House of Onyx, Sabre and Laurence's relationship, Sabre's friendship with the Crown Prince.
If you like this you may like:
- Jack of Thorns by A.K. Faulkner
- For Real by Alexis Hall
- Angels Before Man by Rafael Nicolás
- How to Bare Your Neck and Save a Wreck by D.N. Bryn
Graphic/Explicit CW for sexual content, physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, violence.
Moderate CW for grief, gun play, gun violence, parental death, child death, death.
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