Bingo 15: Scandal
Rahela Domitia is the most scandalous Lady in Waiting in court; she’s really got a reputation, and her voice and figure support it, along with the nickname/title “Beauty Dipped in Blood” (apparently she likes wearing white with red accents). Think Evil Stepsister Game of Thrones style. Rae is not so much scandalous as unlucky and probably a little bitter; she’s got terminal cancer at the age of about 20. Rae and her little sister Alice are major fan girls of a fantasy series that seems to be a cross between Game of Thrones, a fire zombie apocalypse, and a god-level Emperor zombie ruler who somehow still might have human attachments (he’s Rae’s favorite). Rae is offered that chance by a mysterious woman to be transported into her favorite series with the task of retrieving a particular flower that only blooms on a particular time, and Rae will be able to come back to her own world and live healed. If she fails though….
Who does Rae wake up as? Rahela. When? The night before Rahela’s execution. Now Rae has to use her incomplete and imperfect knowledge of the books to survive, find the flower, and do it all by being as “wicked” as possible. Suitable for a book called Long Live Evil.
This is almost what I’d call “Dark cozy fantasy”; it seems like there’s a bit of a trend with dark fantasy with comic tones, and this story falls right into that category. It’s full of tropes, but tries to have fun with them. The only real problem is that the story does sometimes try to take itself seriously, especially around the question of who gets to be real and who is not real. If you don’t think about it too much, it’s an entertaining story with entertaining characters with a few surprises that really aren’t too terribly surprising. Rahela/Rae and her gang of “evil-doers” really aren’t that evil, just unconventional, which is almost a problem given how many times the characters proclaim themselves and each other wicked, bad, etc. Even her guard Key, easily borderline psychotic, has enough of a backstory that you almost want to root for him to overcome it because of how badly he wants to.
There’s obviously a grand scheme (several really), mostly all of it goes wrong, and Rae starts wondering how much she may have changed the story she’s been trying to change, except that maybe she didn’t want to change it this way, etc. That’s the other place the novel seems to try and take itself seriously, and that contradicts the having fun with the tropes tone it takes most of the rest of the time; taking control or changing your own narrative trajectory is pretty unavoidably the other major theme of the story. It’s a fine theme to have, it fits the isekai-ness, but the serious philosophizing/preaching doesn’t quite fit the tone of the rest. Again, don’t think about it too hard, and it’s an entertaining read, with a sequel in the works because, naturally there’s a cliffhanger ending too.