I yielded to temptation and skipped way ahead in my TBR lineup, to a book that’s not coming out until December. Unfortunately for my self-discipline, my impatience was amply rewarded, because Call Me Traitor by Everina Maxwell is amazingly good! I had seen it described as a romantasy, so I was expecting something similar to Maxwell’s previous science-fiction romances, Winter’s Orbit and Ocean’s Echo, where it was easy to ignore the somewhat handwavy worldbuilding because the lovely longing feelings took center stage. In Call Me Traitor, however, the worldbuilding starts with intriguing little hints, builds up as the action continues, and then starts getting a lot deeper and broader with flashbacks to an interrogation, until some truly horrifying foundational facts are revealed to the characters and the readers. There is romance, of course, and it is integral, but it doesn’t really manifest as a plot element until well along in the book. There is also horror, comfort, academia, exciting action scenes, some lyrical descriptive language, divided loyalties and identity conflicts, callousness and kindness, scary antagonists that may not be so villainous after all, and supposed allies that have terrible secrets. This is as good and deep as any great fantasy novel that I’ve read lately; it does a LOT, but it all comes together amazingly satisfyingly in the end.