A review by bargainbinkazbrekker
The Gilded Crown by Marianne Gordon

3.5

Thank you to Netgalley for sending me an Ebook arc in exchange for an honest review!

The atmosphere, magic system, and world building were the best parts of this book for me! I loved the interactions Hellevir had with Death and the world that he inhabited. I loved the exploration of religion and religious structures (one of my favorite topics to be explored in fiction, it's absolutely fascinating to me). The world felt very alive to me, I genuinely enjoyed being it. I also really appreciated the casual queer rep we got. It wasn’t a big deal that there was a gay (man-loving-man) relationship, and our main character develops feelings for another girl. That being said, I didn't care much about the main romance, I just didn’t feel like it was realistic the way it progressed but that may just be me. Romances hardly ever work for me in fiction.

I don’t have much else to say, the ending felt a bit abrupt, like I got to the second to last chapters and was like there's no way it's ending in one chapter, there's still so much happening, but I know that this has a sequel, so hopefully things get resolved in it. 

A solid fantasy read with queer rep and an interesting world and magic system!