london, december 2021. on a trip, just before i went home to the states for the holidays i stop into a bookshop. because… of course i did. i picked up a flowery pink and purple book, one i’d not heard much about. a marvellous light by freya marske. and oh cool, it happens to be signed and rec’d by the staff of the store. i buy it.

now, i’d heard of it, given i try to keep up with newer queer releases (but nowhere near to the scale that i do now). i knew there was a magic system based off of cat’s cradle. i knew it was a historical fiction set mostly in london. i knew it was queer. and that’s about it. i brought that book with me across two transatlantic flights and read it about a month or so later.

i fell in love.

fast forward nearly two years later. a power unbound, the final book in my favorite series is releasing in a few months. a series that is forever engrained on my body via tattoo. an homage to a magic system so unique. a cast of characters so brilliant. a storyline so neatly constructed. it forms a present in a box with a bright red bow on top. if i could look back on myself, two years ago, searching that bookshop deciding what to purchase next. i’d give myself the biggest hug for choosing that pink and purple book. out of all the options. it truly opened a whole new world for me…

the last binding trilogy has seeped so deeply into my whole being. these characters have become a part of who i am now. from the moment robin and edwin’s first interactions to their last. this story has brought me so much warmth, so much community, all of us hoping for this cast of magicians and unbusheled to save the day.

a power unbound. we’ve had two books to prepare for jack and alan’s story. and i still don’t think i was truly ready for it after all. normally, when i write a review for a book it’s usually right after i finish it. i don’t have the best memory so i try to get my thoughts onto pages asap. with this, however, i’ve sat and wrote it bit by bit. here and there. slowly piecing together my thoughts.

and i do know this. their story will not leave me any time soon.

jack. a man so utterly shaped by the loss of his twin sister, about sixteen years prior to these events. a man who wants to turn his back on the magical community for all the harm they’ve done. a man who’s a bit burnt at the edges after trusting someone harmful in the past. he’s thrust back in to the magical world by an ex, his nonmagical boyfriend, and said boyfriends’ determined younger sister. we’ve seen him slowly open his heart back out (yes, romantically for alan in this book, but also generally) for new relationships in his life, platonic, familial. slowly uncovered over the course of the past two books. we see why he’s hesitant. we see why deep down he essentially always wants to do good by his sister. we first-handedly discover his motivations for why he “reluctantly” continues to help their schemes. we see him come to terms with changes to his magical identity. ones that he very clearly never allowed himself to process for all those years.

god, do we see it all. it’s perseverance (or sheer stubbornness, you decide) at it’s finest. and i absolutely adore that we were able to receive his story in this manner. not only with his personal growth, but with his relationship towards alan. yes, we had quite a fair few steamy (and kinky, of course) sex scenes. but we got to see them both break down their very high, very enforced walls for each other.

alan. our last addition to the core cast. we met him abroad the lyric in the second book. while we’d only see him in bits and pieces during that book, we see so much more of his character in the finale. we come to learn so much about his willpower, especially if it involves his family. he feels so much duty towards them and will genuinely do whatever needs to be done in order to keep them safe, housed, and fed. we see his mistakes, his secrets, and how he amends for it all. he’s cunning, sly, and so damn witty. he truly is the only one that can keep up with hawthorn’s remarks and i love it so much. it gives the two of them the absolute best banter you will ever read, in my opinion.

with these books, i always hang up on the characters, because i adore them all so much. their realness, their talents, their flaws. whatever. its the strength of these books. but since the story is done now, i have to say how this book wrapped up so many intricate details into 400ish pages. not only do we develop the hottest relationship of the books (you all know i’m right), but we close out all of their stories. they had to successfully solve the problem regarding the last contract. they had three estates between the lot to essentially account for. as well as a ton of other tiny details sprinkled throughout. and i think it was so delicately constructed to be able to accomplish all of that. all that while keeping the reader entertained and without letting the pacing drag. it truly shows the power of marske’s writing ability.

now, do i have hopes that with a few nudges and comments mentioned at the end that i feel like it could be set off for a sequel/companion series? i absolutely hope so. freya, i will be (not so) patiently awaiting the news.

[original review]

i’m going to need 3-5 business days to process my thoughts.