Something Wicked - my thoughts on a book
Expect book spoilers for 'Something Wicked' by Falon Ballard in this post and maybe a rant on what a romantasy is.
Here is the Goodreads link to Something Wicked by Falon Ballard and a bit about it:
a seductive romantasy that blends Macbeth and Moulin Rouge! into a hypnotic saga of sex, love, and murder.
This book intrigued me because I really liked the cover. It reminds me of some of the old-style classic Romance novel paintings. The couple on the front wearing a tuxedo and gown make it appear to be more modern/urban fantasy than something in a medieval based world and since the story I’m writing is more “urban”, I wanted to try this to see how someone else did it but turns out it’s not urban at all.
It didn’t even feel like a romantasy. The fantasy part is really lacking in the world. But maybe I just don’t understand what a Romantasy is! Artiranth Fields has a really good post about this:
Even googling for more discussion about this topic, it’s not very clear. Some say romantasy is just a romance story in a fantasy world, and must follow romance book conventions. Others say that it can be a ‘romantic fantasy’ with more focus on the fantasy and worldbuilding but even that term ends up being used interchangeably with fantasy romance.
My own interpretation/expectation/understanding (what I want) is that romantasy has both romance and fantasy in equal amounts, even more preferable if both the romance and fantasy rely on each other so there isn’t any book at all if you take any of it away.
Something Wicked felt like taking out the fantasy wouldn’t have changed the romance, almost as if adding the fantasy elements was an afterthought. If I can take out the “fantasy” part and still have the full book with an unchanged romance story there, then what was the point in making it fantasy?
It was very clear reading this that the author has experience writing the regular, generic, usual kind of romance novels because it read just like one (and looking up their previous titles confirmed). So it felt like this was some discarded old manuscript idea fluffed up to cash in on the romantasy phenomenon. This disappointed me because if I wanted to read a regular, generic, usual kind of romance, I would have just picked up a romance book.
One thing this story hits you over the head with is the aesthetic of Moulin Rouge meets Shakespeare. They live in Stratford City in the country of Avon, so it only could have been more obvious if it was Willy McShakespeareland. And if you ever want a pinterest board of Moulin Rouge aesthetic in word form, then this book is for you.
The FMC, Cate, lives and works (by using her Gift—a sex based magic super power, because this is a romance so of course it is sex based) in a pleasure house and her descriptions make sure you know how luxurious the Not!Moulin Rouge (La Poussaince) is with its scarlet silk sheets, walnut four poster bed, gold elephant-shaped bowl, lush crimson walls, gilded mirrors, and golden bar carts. It’s all supposed to be sexy and lush.
Personally, I like when descriptions are weaved into the narrative and aren’t just a shopping list but the author tried maybe a little too hard to not make a shopping list by blending the descriptions with actions every single time. It became annoying because it ended up being overused for everything. Instead of “I walked to the bed and lay on my sheets” descriptions were formed in a structure like this: “I walked to the walnut four poster bed and lay on my scarlet silk sheets surrounded by my bedroom’s lush crimson walls”. This was used for both objects/environment and people, such as co-workers:
Her big brown eyes widen as she tosses her long black curls over her shoulder, wrapping her thick robe tighter around her lithe figure.
Luckily by the time everything was given descriptions, it died down a bit.
But there was a very important piece missing a description: The world itself.
This might be why the book doesn’t feel like it’s fantasy because apart from the non-real world names, we don’t even know we’re in a fantasy world and we don’t know anything about the fantasy people other than they exist.
Most of what we know comes from the map at the front of the book which has Avon split into four provinces and each province has a King (including a King Capulet, because you know, ✨ Shakespeare ✨ ).
It’s not until chapter six when the MMC (Callum, a Prince) briefly visits the city and we first get a glimpse of the world outside. And a glimpse it all it is. He rides in a carriage on cobblestone streets and smells the poors. It’s a small but late introduction when Cate is living right there in it and has had all her previous chapters to tell us about the city she lives in but didn’t for some reason?
She and her sister even lived on the streets, but in the brief mention of their past, there was no description what it looked like. Obviously living on the street isn’t glamorous or fun, but this would have opened up somewhere to describe the external world to us much earlier.
For a while we lived on the streets, depending on strangers for food and a little coin now and then. Because we’re both Gifted, we were unable to find any sort of work without sponsorship, and who was going to sponsor two neglected children? I thought we might be on the streets forever until Diana found us.
By this point it was obvious the book wasn’t set in a medieval-like era. It’s not a modern setting either, but it never gave enough information to picture anything ourselves to what kind of setting it is.
Being so heavily inspired by the Moulin Rouge movie, which is set in late 1800s France, I ended up picturing what I thought 1800s France and Paris looked like from what I remembered seeing in the movie.
My imagination may not have been wrong, but there should be words on the page to depict it for me.
The chapters alternate POV between Cate and Callum but their voices are very similar. When a chapter ends and the next switches a POV the prose still reads like it’s following the same person, even down to the insta-love feelings they have for each other (later claimed to be because they are “Bonded”). Cate is an orphan who was rescued off the streets and is now a courtesan in a pleasure house. Callum is a Prince who has been raised to be his Kingdom’s heir. They should be very distinct people!
The main difference shown between them is Cate is Gifted but Callum hates the Gifted due to a traumatic incident in his past. This causes tension between the couple but because of their ✨ Bond ✨ , also not really? Callum’s mother was killed by someone with a Gift and this could have been an interesting exploration into the existence of Gifts… but nothing happened with it.
There are strict rules in place for the Gifted such as not being allowed to marry, they can’t have kids, and too many of them cannot congregate in one place. In some of the other provinces many Gifted are abused and killed.
By the way, all of the Gifted are women (and girls).
The people trying to make laws and rule over them are men.
Nothing touches on this fact.
Between each chapter (or most of them) are diary entries, letters, pieces of news—all from different characters—which provide different context to the plot that the two main characters don’t know. Through these we find out some secrets.
There is a prophecy about who the eventual ruler sitting on the throne will be (Cate’s sister is a Seer). The prophecy was vague (as they usually are) so the truthful outcome is up in the air, but the characters were at least smart enough to recognise it could be various people and they actually had a discussion about it and did not just assume one specific person. This was not wrapped up in this book, so a reveal in a future book, I bet.
While I did make it all the way through, I was struggling in the last 100 pages or so, which is when all the action started to happen. Someone died and it wasn’t as impactful as it should have been.
People with Gifts were used in the action, the antagonist was collecting them like Pokémon, but I just didn’t care about them by then. This would have been more interesting if there was a bigger focus on Gifts and the Gifted through the story, like the history and magic of it. Do people ever wonder why they have Gifts and others do not? Why do only women have them?
It would have made the political drama and the off-screen war to protect the rights of the Gifted more compelling if I actually knew what the characters were fighting for.
Have you read Something Wicked? What did you think?
What do you think of the classification of Romantasy?
This was a very interesting read, and as someone who is aro-ace, I thought your perspective really incapsulates the big push for romantasy and the lack of world-building. Publishers want to follow trends, authors want to get published so they end up making their books cookie-cut-outs of popular genres to appeal to publishers. The last interesting book I read in regards to romance was a Jane Austen retelling, but I couldn't finish it because the author continued to add so much unnecessary things. Also, I liked that you pointed out the sex magic could only be used by girls and women because that just feels...weird? Maybe not unknowingly sexist, but definitely sexualizing women.
"People with Gifts were used in the action, the antagonist was collecting them like Pokémon,"
Super important question. Sexy magic is lethal? Or is the sexy magic just one persons thing.
Also loved the review kinda want to indulge just for the sexy magic