A crown for cold silver

I renewed this book from the library five times and just couldn't get through it. Nothing in particular, it's just that there was always something else I wanted to read more than this.

So, the premise is: Blah de blah incompetent political appointee widows the wrong woman when he's sent to pacify the countryside, not realizing she's the retired former general who once led The Five Demons all the way to the steps of the capital before faking her death to retire. Now she wants revenge and she's heading back to the capital-- once she rounds up her former five generals.

Sounds great, right?

I just couldn't get into it. Partly because it follows a lot of characters and keeps flipping between them, which is always a strike against a book, with me.

But partly because... I dunno. I know nothing about Alex Marshall, and am not intending to make any claims about their gender, but this book feels like it was written by a man.

I mean, I have had online tools tell me I am a man, which is something that never happens to me offline, and I have read books written by men that felt like they were written by a woman, so I honestly don't mean that I have a magical ability to detect gender through writing.

What do I mean? I dunno. I guess I mean, when I read the women characters, there's no point of connection, for me, to them as women.

And this book has a pretty good excuse! It seems to occur in a world where there's no gender oppression. The religious and political leaders are female, there seems to be no assumption of heterosexuality, and it actually does some fun stuff with gender presentation. So presumably being a woman in that world would be pretty different, and I should make allowances.