Friday, June 2, 2023

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Bitter Medicine by Mia Tsai

 



Full Disclosure: This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on March 14, 2023 in exchange for a potential review. I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.

Bitter Medicine is a fantasy/paranormal romance novel written by debut author Mia Tsai. The novel features a world where paranormal beings exist alongside humanity without their knowledge, all coming from myths and creations of different cultures - so our protagonists are a Chinese Immortal and a Half-Elf Fae - many of whom work together for a Fae Company under its boss Oberon. The story doesn't focus too much on how this setting should or could work, and instead deals largely with the romance between its main duo: Elle, the aforementioned immortal - who conceals her magical/medical skills to hide herself and her older brother from her dangerous but still loved older brother - and Luc, a half-elf who serves as Oberon's best fixer, meaning he kills or gets rid of whatever stands in Oberon's way, despite his dislike of what that entails and what that means about him. The story follows the duo as they finally admit their feelings for one another, come into conflict due to their secrets, and have to figure out what to do about it.

And Bitter Medicine tells this story really really well, and drew me in quite strongly. The story's approach to the romance begins kind of slow burn as both characters are afraid to spit it out, but once they do it gets incredibly steamy in the best way possible. And when their secrets do come out, Tsai takes the story in directions that really aren't the usual way - for example, not to spoil too much, this book avoids the usual romance plot arc where the characters get together, break apart due to a conflict, and then get back together again and reconcile....events and difficulties do occur, but our characters approach and deal with them in different and understandable ways, and this diversion from the usual plot arc really works. Tsai's refusal to go with normal pathways for this romance, and the development of her characters, their plot arcs, and the setting around them, wind up really working and being highly enjoyable, such that I could barely put this book down. If you're looking for a fantasy romance, this is definitely something you should be into.


------------------------------Plot Summary--------------------------------
Elle works as a middling-rank shopkeeper for Roland & Riddle, the faerie temp agency, drawing magical glyphs for B and lower level agents. It's a waste of her magical talents as a descendent of the Chinese god of medicine, but Elle is determined not to let on that she can do more, for fear it'll attract attention to her real identity..and to the thought-dead older brother Tony who she once saved from her murderous younger brother Yìwú. Only by staying hidden can Elle ensure her safety...and that of Tony.

There's just one problem: Agent Luc Villois, the half-elf agent who has been patronizing Elle's shop for the last few months, and who Elle has a serious crush on. For Luc, Elle can't help but customize her work without him knowing to give him better results, and to hope that one day he might want more from her than merely glyphs.

And unknown to Elle, Luc is just as infatuated with Elle as she is with him, and keeps coming back to her not just because her magic seems to have saved his life, but also because well...he wishes he had the courage to ask her for more. But Luc is not just the ordinary agent he pretends to be, but the top "fixer" - assassin, spy, thief, cleanup man - for Roland & Riddle's top man: Oberon. And Luc's latest mission is, unknown to him, to track down Elle's brother Yìwú....who has seemingly tracked down Tony and Luc and aims to finish the job he once started years ago.....
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Readers who are familiar with romance will start Bitter Medicine and think they can see what's coming here, because the book is structured in a really familiar way. You have a story whose perspective shifts between each of the two main characters, each of whom is falling for/has a crush on the other. Both characters have secrets that if discovered threaten to put the two in opposition to the other, especially when Luc's secret job puts him on the hunt for Elle's younger brother. So what you expect to happen is something like: the two characters fall in love, have a romantic moment, discover the truth about each other and break up, only for Luc to decide that Elle is more important and switch sides/not quite fulfill his orders in order to help Elle and to be with her, after which they reconcile. This is how most books of this type work, but Bitter Medicine doesn't take that tack at all.

And it's able to avoid that tack by making each of its main characters have depth and background that makes them something more than either just a romantic partner for the other or the person their secret suggests they should be. In Elle for example, you have a person used to struggling with being torn all over the place by her emotions. On one hand, her magic (and her) wants to be free and used, but on the other she has to keep it hidden to protect Tony; similarly, she is on the run from her other brother Yìwú for fear of him killing her and Tony, but at the same time she loves Yìwú as a sibling and as she remembers him, so she doesn't actually want to ever take a stand and confront him. And of course she longs for the family she left behind and let them think she and Tony were dead, but at the same time wants to get free of that family who only thought of her and Tony as tools to do their duties (especially Tony). So it's probably less of a surprise that when Luc's secret is revealed, her reaction is not to reject him, but something different.

Meanwhile Luc is a man who is torn apart by his job as a Fixer and what it leads him to do...and what his boss Oberon makes him do, under threat of using Luc's true name (given when Luc didn't realize what that meant) to compel him if he doesn't comply. Luc has a softer side he only previously shares with his aunt, a Sphinx, and it's that side that colors his greatest failure, a failure (which I won't reveal here) that he is desperate to try to correct. Luc is thought of as a monster by those who work around him and don't know the truth, but Elle - who has a brother she still loves despite her believing him to be a monster - is able to see those other sides or give him a chance to show them, which prevents the pain of a rejection coming from her.

Of course all of the above only comes after a ton of pining and "cannot spit it out" moments, as you would expect from a romance like this, and god are those moments painful (in a good way). But when the two characters do finally get together romantically and share a good kiss and hot sex (we do get one very nice sex scene), it pays off in spades. And then the book takes its last act and all the character development to change things up dramatically by drastically altering the status quo, forcing a difficulty onto Elle and Luc's relationship that isn't caused by one of them betraying the other, and the way they adapt to that new status quo is extremely well done, as they deal with depression, loss of power, and more.

The result is really great, and I really don't want to go into too much more depth without spoiling, but let's just say this is a really great urban fantasy romance/paranormal romance/whatever you want to call it, with great characters, romance, and plotting all the way through the end. I highly recommend this if romance is what you're looking for.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)