Gabe Ramirez is keeping a lot of secrets from his lover, Ruby. Like the fact that not only he is NOT Gabe Ramirez, farmhand fleeing debt collectors and hiding in Northeastern Oregon, but that he is in fact Gabriel Martiniere, one of the scions of the powerful Martiniere family, one of the most influential families in the world. And that the real reason he is under an assumed name is because of hiding from some members of his family after a trial testimony went horribly wrong.
But when a true crime show uses footage of Gabe from his trial to tell his story, Gabe’s exile and hiding out are going to come to an abrupt end. Gabe is going to have to admit to Ruby who and what he really is. Worse, it seems certain he is going to have to return to the Martiniere family and its intrigues, both inside and out, whether he likes it or not. (And he does NOT). And Gabe is going to find that Ruby is as strong willed and as potent as he is to face the challenges returning to his Martiniere life.
Gabe and Ruby’s story is the heart of The Cost of Power: Return, by Joyce Reynolds-Ward. Their story in this iteration, looking at the oeuvre of the author, is to be one of a series of futures/worlds in a multiverse of stories revolving around the Martinieres in general and Gabe and Ruby as well. I have not read any of the other versions of their story or the Martiniere story and I don’t think that those are necessary in order to appreciate this latest iteration of the series. This book settles well as an entry point to the author’s oeuvre and the legacy of the Martinieres, or at least one version of it.
The novel (the first of a trilogy) is a hybrid fusion of a number of subgenres in the process of telling Gabe and Ruby’s story and the author has quite a job on her hands keeping all of these balls in the air. In addition to the complicated plot of Gabe returning to the bosom of his powerful family (one that is extremely traditional, and that one might accurately call techo-aristocratic in nature), Ruby is an expert in this world’s 2033 use of nanotechnology, particularly in their use of agriculture. That expertise is important, as it turns out there has been nanotechnology used by the Martiniere family, and against the Martiniere family for years. Oh, and some of that nanotechnology is apparently psionic in nature. Layer into that the aforementioned multiverse does directly impinge onto the plot, as there are apparently entities from other versions of their history who can interact, and with malice aforethought, against our protagonists. Did I mention the Martiniere’s long association with a mythological, magical creature, the Melusine? Although the exact details of that are apparently lost to time.
So this novel is trying to be a near-future thriller and nanotechnology novel, and a multiverse novel, all of which has a flavor that might well be outright urban fantasy? There are a lot of flavors and textures in the meal that Ward has prepared here for the readers. Fortunately, there are strong throughlines to ground the reader throughout. Our points of view are Ruby and Gabe in alteration and this gives us some ballast in a kaleidoscope of genre mixing and also the whirlwind of Gabe returning to his old life, and Ruby coming into it alongside him. They have a good, strong, loving partnership that goes through a lot of trials..
There is plenty of social and technological speculation in the novel, particularly around the aforementioned nanotechnology and its uses, from things ranging from farms to the quasi-psionics that the Martiniere family has. There is a lot of social speculation, too, in the novel. Gabe’s official cover story is that he is on the run from an indenture, so quasi-serfdom like indentures are apparently a feature of this 2033. There is a good mix of these unfamiliar elements with more ordinary elements so that this future feels like an extension, and not a foreign country.
But let’s return to Gabe and Ruby and their story, since this is their story. To be clear, the novel is not the well worn take that one might expect. This is not a “Gabe returns to the family and Ruby is utterly dazzled” sort of novel. (And in point of fact, the author lampshades this openly.) The author has given Ruby a background as a rodeo queen, well aware of the spotlight, the challenges of the press, social media and dealing with strong personalities. She is fully ready to try and face what life might be like as the partner of NOT Gabe Ramirez, but, instead, Gabe Martiniere. She is every inch Gabe’s partner, and even with the rather patriarchal (revanchistly so) nature of the Martiniere family, she fights for every inch of respect, and then some.
And yes, in a real sense, Gabe and Ruby’s story is at the heart, a romance. It’s not a romance in its earliest stages, it is one that has been established for some time, but now is going to face the greatest challenge it has faced, yet. The novel does a great job in showing a relationship and a romance that is NOT at its beginning, and featuring mature adults working through a major challenge to that relationship.
There is a wealth of secondary characters in the novel, and I could go on at length about many of them, including antagonists, protagonists and neutrals. For all of the twisty genre conventions and elements outlined above, this is very much a book about the pressure cooker of the relationships, past and present and future within and outside of the Martiniere family.
But now I want to focus on two of the female ones. Justine Martiniere-Atwood, in any sort of rational and progressive world, should be the heir apparent (the “Martiniere in Waiting”) of the family. But, the author makes it clear that that would be a non-starter in a lot of the family, and although she has a powerful role in the family, the Martiniere Group would not tolerate her in charge, or even as the apparently single heir of the family. Justine, however, for all of the patriarchal mess that the family is in, gets things done, shows strong loyalty and cleverness, and I definitely would want her on my team if I was suddenly revealed as being part of a sprawling and powerful techno-aristocratic family.
The other character I want to highlight here is Donna-gran, grandmother to Gabriel, mother to his father, and a very real sense the Queen Dowager of the Martiniere family. She’s a complicated character, with power and knowledge, and evinces the years of working in that patriarchal system of the family and basically unofficially running chunks of it. She aptly shows, through her character and her role, how far the Martiniere Group have come now, in Gabe and Justine’s generation, and what she has been able to accomplish with far less official power, official role and resources.
On top of all of that, though, there is an excellent sense of place and location. There is a real grounding of the novel in the fictional Thunder County, Oregon, in the northeastern part of the state. There are enough clues and references to place where it should be (near the Wallowa mountains and Hell’s Canyon) but at the time of the reading, there is excellent grounding of the ranch and the local community that I completely bought that this was a real place that the author was invoking (and that, naturally, given me, that I wanted to go there and photograph it). This country, its people and its nature give a grounding to the characters as well, and the fierceness that Gabe and Ruby have for preserving that life and their roles there.
Overall I was quite entertained by the novel, and, Mount TBR willing, will return to Gabe and Ruby’s story, since this is the first of a trilogy. We get to a minor ending, but I admit it’s not as good an offramp as it might be.
Overall with the help of one of my colleagues, the logline for this book is simple: When witness-turned-fugitive and psi tech heir Gabe falls in love with rodeo queen Ruby, he and readers are in for a hell of a ride.
