I’m taking a page from Jay’s book and re-using some old reviews from my now-defunct personal review blog. For the most part they are unchanged in content, except for removing things that no longer apply and actual editorial scouring…no, not even my prose is immune. 
Sharon Shinn’s novel Fortune and Fate is another in her Twelve Houses series, although this one was not part of the original story arc. It did have the same group of characters from the main arc as minor characters here, but the story was about the aftermath of the war rather than the building up to and then fighting the war itself. It picked up two years after the last book (Reader and Raelynx) ended, and followed a minor character from the last book who had a life-changing event happen during that story.
I get too in-depth with details about places and names; it’s high fantasy, and the story is basically about a restless career soldier who finds herself tasked with creating a strong guard to protect a young woman set to inherit an important property and political position when she comes of age and who has recently been targeted by unkown violent faction(s). The soldier finds herself drawn to the girl’s legal guardian, and slowly develops a relationship with him above and beyond steward and captain of the guard.
The book had Shinn’s hallmarks–prickly woman, opposites attract love story, and some political considerations that give the story more of a plot than just “do they fall in love or don’t they?”–but with a slight spin. The usual style for Shinn’s opposites (and she has had a few like and like pairings, too, just to change things up) is the fiery antagonistic attraction. The Elizabeth and Darcy style of courtship through conflict. Fortune and Fate, however, took a different route, with a pair of lovers who were very different but quietly fascinated with each other rather than constantly at odds. I applaud the new tactic, but it fell a little bit short for me. I think this had to do more with the cross-purposes of developing a relationship beteen the two but keeping the larger plotline going. Because while we get to audit virtually every conversation they have regarding the girl’s safety or the potential enemies, we are only told about the many, many other hours they spend together. So it’s a case of telling and not showing, and so, for me, at least, when they get to the point of declaring themselves and acting on their attraction, it seemed kind of out of the blue even though supposedly it had been simmering this whole time.
On the other hand, the subplot of the young heiress (she’s 16 when the book opens) and her budding romance with a possibly unsuitable–or possibly perfect–man was more exciting and somehow better developed, even though it was a minor plot element. Maybe it just felt better developed because in the context of where it fit into the story, it was maximized, whereas the main love story was not?
Overall, though, I really enjoyed the book. The thing about the romance is a fairly minor criticism, because this was not a story I was really reading for the romance. I was much more interested in seeing what changes the end of the war had wrought on the land and the people within it, and I felt like that was explored beautifully. It’s actually not a scenario I’ve read too many times, even in fantasy, which is a genre famous for its catastrophic, world-ending battles. Presumably the putting back together of the world is too boring for most people? So I liked seeing this different aspect of the epic war.
As always, the writing was perfect. Not one typo; not one sentence I found myself re-writing. Shinn may not have a flashy style–though she does have an artist’s eye for imagery–but I find her amazingly readable. I can sink into the words and forget that I’m reading. For me, that is the best kind of narration for a story: a story that I can simply absorb without having to stop and sort through a hundred dependent clauses to decipher the meaning, or sit there and replace the string of ten large words with simple ones, or just step away from the story to admire the rhetorical flourishes like a peacock preening. Not that complex sentences and big words and clever writing don’t have their place (and not to imply that Shinn never uses them!), but, for me, in a storybook story, they can’t take over the prose to such an extent that it distracts from the story. And Shinn balances her writing quite beautifully; she writes elegantly but without ever pulling me out of the moment.
For me, this was a great book. But I don’t know that it would have the same resonance for someone who had not already read the first four books set in this world, so I doubt this will be a book I give to friends who decide they want to know what this Sharon Shinn is all about and why I love her so much. But if you’re already a Shinn fan, or if you’ve read the rest of the Twelve Houses books, this next installment is definitely one you’ll enjoy.
