Of Dragons, Feasts and Murders

Vietnamese dragon prince and his sexy fallen angel husband visit dragon family in Paris for Lunar New Year? Sure! As usual this year I have no idea how this ended up on my reading list but sounded interesting and it's a fairly short novella that didn't take long to consume. I didn't realize till after I finished that this is set in the Dominion of the Fallen world and would fall after book 3 in that series. It IS a stand-alone so it didn't matter that I hadn't read anything else by the author before. However, I do feel as if I probably missed a lot about the world-building and the relationship between the two husbands. Still, it was an interesting world to explore just through this novella, clearly very detailed and very political, and everyone seems to have an animal alternate-form as there were dragons, crabs, and all sorts of other beings mentioned.

The two protagonists are visiting family for a holiday and investigate a murder on the way, since as "outsiders" they have more leeway to ask odd questions. Along the way they, and we, learn more about what's really going on. It was interesting enough that I might pick up the earlier books in the series at some point, although I wasn't so blown away that I'm rushing out to read them very next thing. Definitely a cool world though, so I'm sure more of it will be interesting.

Set in [a:Aliette de Bodard|2918731|Aliette de Bodard|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1598376543p2/2918731.jpg]’s Dominion of the Fallen universe — a Belle-Époque Paris ruined by a magical war with a decaying empire of Vietnamese dragons in the Seine — and coming after the third and final novel, this novella centres my 2 favourite characters: lovingly known as the Murder­birds, a bookish cinnamon-roll dragon prince and a stab-and-slice-first, questions-later Fallen angel.

de Bodard describes this Locus Award finalist as “High Gothic meets C‑drama in a Vietnamese-inspired world” and her own blurb summarises the book best:

Lunar New Year should be a time for familial reunions, ancestor worship, and consumption of an unhealthy amount of candied fruit. But when dragon prince Thuan brings home his brooding and ruthless husband Asmodeus for the New Year, they find not interminable family gatherings, but a corpse outside their quarters.

Asmodeus is thrilled by the murder investigation; Thuan, who gets dragged into the political plotting he’d sworn off when he left, is less enthusiastic. It’ll take all of Asmodeus’s skill with knives, and all of Thuan’s diplomacy, to navigate this one — as well as the troubled waters of their own relationship.

A delightful whodunnit court drama, which shows off both the 2 protagonists and the dragon empire, while also giving a little introduction to some of the concepts of ruined Paris above the Seine.

CN: murder, attempted murder, mention of past torture and sexual violence, questions of consent, amoral bureaucracy.