If the writing is decent, as it is here, I am always inclined to be generous with autobiographical first novels. At first I was decidedly worried that this tale of a gay youngster growing up in the disapproving Sri Lankan culture would prove to be too twee and clichéd for me. After all, we do get quite a lengthy introductory chapter describing how young Arjie loves to play "bride-bride" with his girl cousins. However, the story picked up both depth and grit as it went on, and the growing racial tensions between Tamil and Sinhalese are well-introduced into the relationships of the important people - mostly women - in our protagonist's life.

There's an air of quiet menace through most of this book, but it's blunted in the first instance by Arjie's childish viewpoint, which gradually disappears of course as Arjie gets older, but also as the political situation worsens and various peripheral figures in his life disappear or meet mysterious bad ends, for reasons that can only be racial or political. In school, experiencing a first love, he also has to negotiate a bullying principal and adults' near-incomprehensible motivations. The recitation of a ridiculous colonial poem praising school takes on bizarre significance, as does Arjie's deliberate flubbing of that recitation, an act of boyish protectiveness, trying to save his boyfriend by thwarting the ambitions of the aforementioned bully. The sudden and devastating advent of war results in Arjie's family's flight into hiding, the burning of their house, and the murder of his grandparents. Though in the last chapter he finally has sex with his boyfriend, it is melancholy and awkward, and we are fully aware that Arie and his family are fleeing to Canada. Like everything else, and like the transgressive loves of all the women in the book who have reflected aspects of his story, Arjie's love falls victim to the cruelties of the larger world.

The sequel to "Luck in the Shadows", this novel essentially closes the story arc relating to the ritualistic reconstitution of an ancient object of power by a nasty modern-day pair (a politician and a wizard, of course). It also sees the first kiss between our two heroes, who have certainly dilly-dallied in getting to that point, but given that Alec is a juvenile, that's quite understandable. If you come to this series hoping for the hot-and-heavy sex and romantic angst of modern-day fanfic set in similar milieux, though, you'll be sorely disappointed. Like the first book, this one's heavy on the plot, relatively light on interpersonal relationships generally, and extremely light on the romance. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the move forward with a familiar world and familiar characters into a new collection of settings and problems. The self-immolation of the elder sage at the hands of a younger character so that the world can be saved is a well-worn trope (waves at that old Hogwarts greybeard); I am hopeful, though, that the PTSD that event rightly triggers in the enforced murderer will be woven into the character a bit and survive beyond the denouement of this book, rather than being instantly cured by a declaration and a first kiss. I think this author's good enough to manage that, and the characterisation important enough to her.

That said, I'm going to put this series aside a bit instead of pursuing the last three volumes right away, especially considering the neat wrap-up at the end of this volume. I found the world-building and plot clear and well enough structured, and the writing (other than, once again, the occasionally jarring American slanginess) quite all right, but when I look back on both novels from the distance of a few weeks, I discover I found them competent but not particularly compelling. If somehow I had read them when I was 16, it might have been a different matter.

Back before I discovered the amazing and sometimes awful world of slash fanfiction, I grew interested in a somewhat similar phenomenon, though more muted, in published science fiction and fantasy by women, featuring gender transgressions (well, transgressions in those days) amongst mostly male characters. Marion Zimmer Bradley, Ursula Le Guin, Storm Constantine and others seemed to me the late twentieth century successors to a conversation that started with homoerotic undercurrents in the work of sentimental historical novelists like D.K. Broster.

The first two novels of this series were recommended to me long ago (though I can't remember by whom) as being in that same fantasy tradition. This first in the series, which I enjoyed, barely merits the "homoerotic" tag - we have only the beginnings of sexual awareness in the youthful protagonist, Alec, and a little bit of reported, suppressed attraction from the himself attractive somewhat older man, Seregil. What it does have is lots of solid world-building, along with a good cast of supporting characters, including a number of strong and disparate women. If I had a quibble at all, and it only occurred at the end, it was that the plot, which I found well-paced, was in fact rather obviously divided in two, with a detailed set-up of a dark magic threat in the first half, not fully resolved but then lost in the political/fraudulent machinations of the nobles in the second half. A serious threat to Seregil is averted in each half, but how or whether the two strands are otherwise connected has yet to be revealed. In a fantasy series, I'm much more inclined to forgive this kind of partial lack of conclusion, because the series, obviously, has to continue.

By and large the writing was good and the tone well-maintained. I was very occasionally lifted away from the page by some lapse into slanginess that I would have queried if I had been editing the book. If I've been stingy with my stars (as usual), it is only because I am anticipating with some pleasure that I may be able to push the rating up when Seregil and Alec achieve more of their destiny in the next book.