Iris Foxglove
In my first post in over six months, I’m delighted to review the entire Starian Cycle series by Iris Foxglove. It’s not historical mystery, so if that’s what you’re looking for, this is unfortunately not for you. Believe me when I say I blew through this series so fast that my head is still spinning a little; it was that good. It gets a rare 5/5 stars for plot, wit, characters, and a fantastic sense of humor.
Iris Foxglove is actually a team of two writers, Fae Loxley and Avon Gale. I don’t even think I could write a book with myself, let alone another person, so I’m always impressed with these writing partnerships. I’m not sure how they team up; the books are usually told from the protagonists’ viewpoints, so does each author take a point? Who knows. Either way, it works well. The writing is cohesive and well-organized. Readers get a good picture of Staria/the Court/the Pleasure Houses, but not overly descriptive to where readers just want to get on with the action.
Foxglove has a talent for characters; I immediately felt for Sabre and Laurent in The Traitor’s Mercy, but was very surprised when I ended up wanting the best for Devon and Sebastian in The Duke’s Demon, and even Emile in The King’s Mage. Foxglove feeds you elements of the characters throughout the books, and you can’t help loving them, in the end. They are totally zany, their own people, and flawed enough to be recognized as human…er, well. People, at any rate. The main characters are captivating, but they wouldn’t be anything without the supporting cast: Sebastian’s servants, Laurent’s house employees, the Mislians of Adrien’s adventure in The Prince’s Vow. The “minor” characters make a major difference.
I was thrilled when Foxglove brought me back to Sabre and Laurent in The Exile’s Gift. Usually a continuation of a relationship isn’t something I care to read, but I wanted more of these two and their world. I could see their character and relationship development, which was lovely. More importantly, it was not a pointless book written to placate fans of Laurent and Sabre. It had a purpose in the grand scheme of the series, and I would not read The King’s Mage without having read it first. Often I feel like fans are given what they want even though it’s lackluster, but this was so not the case in The Exile’s Gift. You could also really see the humor in this installment of the series, which gave Laurent and Sabre a bit of a relief arc from their darker first book.
Now, I will give a caveat here that I probably should have given at the beginning of this post, and that is that The Starian Cycle is set in a world where people are either dominant or submissive by nature, so there is a BDSM element in there. Did I know anything about it? No, and it’s not a particular favorite reading subject of mine. But, I just kind of accepted it as the nature of the Starian world even if it didn’t make much sense to me. Honestly, you can skip all of the sex scenes and still end up reading a great series.
The world of Staria/Mislia does appear to continue in Foxglove’s Immortals Descending series, and we should see at least one familiar character returning; hopefully more. There are three Staria novellas that I plan to read. Honestly, I’d read whatever Foxglove puts out about Staria. There’s just something about this world and the characters that’s special.