my experience of romantasy is largely on the peripheral, seeing people complain about how it prioritizes romance with little plot/worldbuilding, which is a big reason i've avoided it (alongside how so much of it seems to be cishetnormative and i just don't care for that) so i'm very glad that, for me, The Second Death of Locke seems to subvert both of those expectations of the genre. there's no doubt that it's a very romance-forward read; the dynamic between Kier and Grey is the basis of the story, but not where it ends and begins. one of my pet peeves about fantasy is when the author is clearly Trying To Write Fantasy and doing a really bad Tolkien impression; this usually leads to "Too Much Worldbuilding", which one might not think is a problem, but it absolutely is, though i don't know how to fully explain this concept. it's just something i've noted in fantasy over the years. authors boxing themselves in and feeling the need to account for every little detail can be great and fun but it can also be exhausting; the extreme opposite of explaining nothing and going off vibes isn't quite the answer, but i think Bovalino strikes a wonderful balance. her world has that hazy, ethereal vibe of fantasy that i like (in my head this very much has the aesthetics of 70s/80s fantasy films) with solid but not concrete worldbuilding. there's some malleable edges. does this mean that some things will feel like plot holes? yes. but i don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. creating a secondary world and populating it is hard, especially in the debut of that series; when you're planning more, i think it's best to go slow at first, and not offer up too much that you then might accidentally counteract in future installments. Bovalino provides a wonderful base here in Locke, woven into the relationship of Kier and Grey; the setting here is familiar in some ways but completely new in others, and it makes it such an interesting world to inhabit for the duration of the book.

i don't agree with some criticism that Kier and Grey's only personality traits are loving each other. it's certainly central and a driving force, but from the beginning there is depth to them. i love that Kier is a magic user who is also adept with a sword; so often i feel like fantasy likes a hard delineation between the two. Grey being a woman warrior isn't so groundbreaking these days but i still feel like her character manages to be a refreshing take on the trope. they're both messy and they fight with each other and disagree and as much as Grey is Kier's loyal knight she isn't simply His Knight; she has worries and concerns and fears and trauma and power all of her own. i'm not usually one who cares for friends to lovers who feel like they can't be together when it's M/F because, in contemporary romance at least, i find that there's very little reason for them to not be together, but i do feel like the trope is actually interesting here, because there IS a lot keeping them apart. the relationship between Hands and their Mages is so interesting and complex and the quiet commentary on bodily autonomy and consent permeates the narrative in a way that's subtle yet also inescapable. i also like that it does this without resorting to tired, old, bioessentialist narratives about gender.

the approach to gender and sexuality in this book in general is one of the primary reasons i love it. while it's true that there's a lot of fantasy that plays around with the concepts, and in many ways it does feel like a building block of the genre, romantasy in general very much does, imo, have an opinion for being cishet (and in a lot of ways, reinforcing patriarchal standards). to have casual bisexuality (and i love a bi4bi romance, it must be said) and introductions of characters outside of the gender binary in fantasy does feel like a novel concept when it shouldn't. Bovalino does a great job at including various representation in side characters in a way that feels natural and not at all like the author just trying to have diversity so that they don't get tweeted at meanly. i also love the ease with which disability is discussed in this; there's no whiff of the usual ableism (better off dead than disabled is inescapable in every genre) and i hate that this really is, in many ways, a novel concept.

it's not a perfect read, but it's immersive and beautiful and so much fun. there's a great base here for an intriguing world and i really want to see where Bovalino takes it, what shape it creates in further stories. i do feel like the ending here was just slightly rushed, but i also really enjoyed the action sequences and the chemistry and love between Kier and Grey is just so engaging that it does manage to smooth over a lot of the pacing issues. overall, this has set a pretty high bar for me when it comes to romantasy and i'm so glad i took a chance and read this.