skygiants

I waxed rhapsodic a few months ago when talking about Tasha Suri's Empire of Sand about what I find appealing in marriage of convenience/obligate travel companions/trapped-in-an-inn/etc.-type stories so I probably don't need to do it again when talking about Everina Maxwell's Winter's Orbit, but I will nonetheless submit it as supporting evidence to my thesis that it is Simply Pleasant to watch people who are circumstantially required to spend significant amounts of time together discover things to like in each other. A very enjoyable experience!

I feel like at least 50% of my dwlist has read Winter's Orbit already in some form or another, but for those who are unfamiliar, the premise: we're In Space, In Empire, and just-royal-enough-to-be-prime-tabloid-fodder Prince Kiem is being rushed into a marriage of convenience with the very recently widowed Count Jainan in order to uphold an alliance with the mildly rebellious subsidiary planet from which Jainan hails.

Kiem and Jainan are both kind, ethical, well-intentioned people who go about being kind, ethical, and well-intentioned in very different ways and with very different baseline assumptions, resulting in a major communications gap from the first day of their deeply awkward marriage. Additionally, there are two big shadows hanging over them: the galactic-scale one is that Jainan's first husband died under very suspicious circumstances, and the personal-scale one is that Jainan's first husband was abusive, a fact which becomes clear to the reader very early on but is definitely not clear to Kiem. The first thing is more important to the plot, but the second thing is more important to the book.

I devoured this in about a day and a half; it's extremely easy and comforting read, not only for Romance reasons but also on the related but distinct axis of "individual who has been constrained and isolated in a bad situation gains trust, self-confidence, and support network." A bit like The Goblin Emperor in this regard, but felt more earned to me than The Goblin Emperor did tbh -- personal stakes better calibrated -- and I'm glad I bought it in hard copy because I suspect I will want to have it on hand for stressful times.

I also very much enjoyed the supporting characters, including Kiem's suspiciously competent personal assistant, Jainan's teen radical junior kinswoman, and the charmingly absent-minded professor who may or may not be a red herring.