Gorgeous, beautifully crafted, and scorching hot, this sapphic romance between a trans butch basilisk and feral femme Medusa will stay with me.
The lush prose and historical specificity reminded me of reading Mary Renault's Alexander the Great series; I felt deeply, sensually grounded in the ancient Greek setting. But magic runs deep through this story, elevating its themes of transness and monstrosity to mythic heights.
Light spoilers below so I can talk about the themes I dug most, though I'll aim to avoid too many specifics.
I'm a sucker for ordeals, and this book is full of them. Petra, the basilisk who we accompany on this journey, has endured many past ordeals out of necessity, but the ordeals we see her navigate in this story are chosen, each bringing her closer to her truest self. The ordeal of surgical transition; the ordeal of reaching Medusa (via a delicious and thoughtfully designed series of trials that literally strip Petra of nearly everything, preparing her for the possibility of renewal); and finally, the ordeal of intimacy, which she and Medusa share.
Medusa has survived by removing herself from the world and guarding herself from those who cannot bear her existence; Petra has survived by physically and emotionally armoring and reshaping herself to fit into that same, hostile world. The way these two characters clash and connect is raw and deeply queer. It's also violent, in a way I found deeply life affirming and hot as hell. I adore kink as a tool to engage with, transform, and even heal trauma and the kinky sex in this story does this expertly. It feels deeply rooted in these serpentine women and the lives they've lived. Eroticizing our own traumas as a way of claiming them is also one of my Favorite Things, and I wanted to cheer every time our leads transformed a tragedy from their pasts into intensely specific, erotic and powerful sex. The dirty talk is top tier, the scenes are creative and varied, and it builds into a bond I found believable and beautiful.
I've read and enjoyed a few of Rien's works before, and this one really bowled me over. I've gotta get into more of their catalogue!