historical fantasy

Cover of The Blood of the Bull by Jo Graham, featuring a woman wearing a dark blue gown, earrings and a jeweled snood, holding a golden goblet with red fluid dripping from it, in front of a stained glass window with various emblems including a bull at the top.
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Book Review: The Blood of the Bull, by Jo Graham

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I’ve been a fan of Jo Graham since her Black Ships (2008), a re-imagining of the Aeneid from the perspective of a priestess. Although she has written a good deal of science fiction (her Calpurnian Wars series and numerous Stargate tie-ins), much of her work has focused on historical fantasy, ranging from the ancient world (her Numinous World novels that started with Black Ships) through the Napoleonic era (The General’s Mistress, etc.) to The Order of the Air, the 1930s series co-written with Melissa Scott that I wrote about in 2018. When Graham’s fantastic Italian Renaissance series debuted in 2023 with A Blackened Mirror, I missed it, along with the 2024 sequel, The Borgia Dove. Now, just ahead of the release of The Blood of the Bull, I have finally caught up, and I’m so glad I did! The Memoirs of the Borgia Sibyl series focuses on Giulia Farnese, a real-life Italian noblewoman who became the lover of Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia. Having some knowledge of history, plus recently listening to Ada Palmer’s Inventing the Renaissance: The Myth of a Golden Age (2025), I was aware of the basic beats of Borgia’s career, although I knew nothing of Giulia. Graham has done a great deal of research and has quoted letters from Rodrigo and Giulia on her Patreon. All the books start with family trees, explanations of timekeeping in Renaissance Rome, and lists of important People, Places and Things, but I mostly skipped over those, trusting Graham to explain what I’d need to know as the story progressed. This was justified, but then, I’ve read a lot of historical novels; others may find these elements extremely helpful, especially since the cast of characters is large. What is not historically recorded is Graham’s version of Giulia being a seer with mystic powers. Early in the first book, she descends into some ancient tombs and begs Persephone to rescue her from her expected destiny of maiden aunthood. Her pleas are granted in very unexpected ways, and her connection with the numinous persists throughout the events of each book, including learning how to cast protective wards against evil, and more. Given that this is based on real history, I don’t think it’s much of a spoiler to say that by book 3, Rodrigo is now Pope Alexander VI. Giulia has assisted in his rise, participating in political intrigues and foiling assassination attempts by various means. The question is, having gained great power, can they keep it against old rivals and new threats? A shocking turn of events sends Giulia fleeing Rome, making herself vulnerable to both French invaders and the ascetic extremist Friar Savonarola. Will Giulia and Rodrigo be able to overcome their internal and external challenges, and save themselves, Rome, and the progressive faction of the Church? Or must the blood of Borgia, whose house emblem is the Bull, be shed and sacrificed to protect all that they cherish? I am really enjoying this series. Giulia is kind, clever, resourceful, and brave, an entirely engaging protagonist. Trapped in a bad marriage, used and endangered by her in-laws, and seeing many examples of rule-breaking in Roman society, it’s natural that she looks for love and protection elsewhere. And although modern eyes would see her relationship with Rodrigo as a May-December romance at best, starting with her being 15 and him 58, I love Graham’s depiction of their courtship and bond. Although he has great temporal and ecclesiastical power, she brings her own resources of perception, intuition, social networking, female-coded skills like the languages of clothes and jewelry, and mystic power into the balance. They are sweet, caring, and considerate of each other (except for rare quarrels), and their wordplay and games are often extremely amusing. And they are extremely sensual and sexual together! Graham excels at depicting intensely warm ongoing relationships that blend earthiness and spiritual aspects, and this comes very much to the forefront here. But it’s not just the Giulia and Rodrigo show. Giulia has brothers and a mother (and in-laws), Rodrigo has sons and daughters (despite his clerical station), and both of them have extensive networks of allies and clients. On the other side are Giulia’s in-laws and the leaders and agents of those who oppose Rodrigo for reasons of nationality (he’s a Spaniard, while most Cardinals are Italian), doctrine (he’s humanist, they’re reactionary), and pure power. Graham weaves the plethora of personal threads to create a rich and brilliant tapestry of life in the Italian Renaissance, highlighted by magical underpinnings and subtle sparks. I was planning to space out these books a bit more, but I was so engrossed by the first novel that I bumped the rest up in my reading schedule and gobbled down the next two in the space of two days. I highly recommend these novels for fans of historical fantasy and romance. The Blood of the Bull will be published on July 7; you can preorder it here. The first two books are available at Candlemark & Gleam. At least one more book, A Golden Branch, is planned in the Memoirs of the Borgia Sibyl series. Content warnings (series): Disease, killings, riots, violence; religious and ethnic persecution; religious patronage and corruption; sexual discrimination and coercion; sex scenes, infidelity, and illegitimacy; curses and black magic. Comps: The Emperor’s Agent, by Jo Graham. Disclosures: As mentioned, I’m a longtime fan of Jo Graham; I used to talk with her on LiveJournal, and I support her on Patreon. I received free eARCs of all three books in the series (so far) from the publisher for review.

Cover of The Vengeance by Emma Newman, Book #1 of The Vampires of Dumas, featuring a skull and crossbones, a compass, bat wings, old-fashioned pistols, sailing ships, sabers, and leaves and flowers.
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Book Review: The Vengeance, by Emma Newman

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The Vengeance is an enjoyable romp by Emma Newman, a flintlock fantasy about a pirate girl’s quest to find her long-lost birth mother. The publisher’s tagline calls it a “swashbuckling adventure set in a version of Alexandre Dumas’s world haunted by vampires” but there isn’t any real hint of the supernatural in the text until about two-thirds of the way through. So if you’re primarily interested in horror, or if you’re really not into pirates, this may not be the book for you. If you enjoy a feisty female protagonist getting into fish-out-of-water misadventures, plus sapphic romance, keep reading. Anna-Marie, the pirate captain who raised her, confesses on her deathbed that she had stolen Morgane from her real mother, whom she calls a monster. But Morgane finds a letter from her birth mother begging for her return and hinting at her own safety concerns. There are various other puzzlements, such as why Anna-Marie had exclusively attacked one trading company’s ships (beyond saying that the owner had ruined her life). However, since Morgane has never run into any situation she can’t handle (albeit with the backing of her fellow pirates), she decides to go and rescue her birth mother. By Chapter Five, Morgane is on her way to France. Once she gets there, she runs into trouble almost immediately; she doesn’t have any idea how many people are going to want to use her, and she knows nothing of how feudalism works. She doesn’t understand why the peasants don’t just vote out their tyrannical lords, the way a pirate crew would reject any pirate captain who wasn’t fair to them. She’s very worldly in some ways, but very naive in others. Note: Morgane tells this story (first person past tense), and she is almost entirely uncritical of the pirate code and lifestyle throughout. She’s rightly proud of how capable it’s made her, but she only feels mild regret for the deaths she’s caused after someone whose lover was killed berates her, and that’s brief. After seeing the vast inequality of wealth in France, she’s sure that trading ships just make rich people richer, so they’re legitimate targets. Anyway, Morgane eventually finds a few people who will help her navigate the treacherous tides of French society, and makes her way toward the estate where she believes her mother is being held. Things turn out very differently from how she had thought, with some shocking scenes and revelations, but with her pistols, sword, dagger, fierce will, and the power of love, Morgane achieves a happy ending. The publisher lists The Vengeance, which comes out May 6, as Book #1 of The Vampires of Dumas, but it works perfectly well as a standalone novel. There are one or two minor dangling plot threads I can think of, plus the likelihood that Morgane will encounter more supernatural and worldly threats in the future, but all the current major perils have been vanquished and the emotional arcs resolved satisfactorily by the end of this book. Content warnings: Piracy, deaths, bloody violence, long-told lies, vampires and other supernatural stuff. Comps: Scarlet, by Genevieve Cogman. Disclaimers: I received a free eARC for review from the publisher via NetGalley.

Cover of The Order of the Circle
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Comics Review: The Order of the Circle

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Elisabeth Mkheidze’s art is strong throughout. Characters are clearly delineated and distinct, and their emotional states are conveyed effectively through expression and body language. Some comics artists tend towards conveying intense expressions too strongly, and characters’ faces look like caricatures or theatrical masks as a result. This seems like a small point, but in a graphic novel with a protagonist who spends virtually all her time on the page some combination of furious, terrified, and grieving, it’s important.

Cover of an Elephant for Aristotle, featuring a man and woman in antique costumes, with an elephant and soldiers in the background.
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Mining the Genre Asteroid: An Elephant for Aristotle

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“… This reinforces the clear point of view that De Camp promotes in the book, and that is one of multiculturalism and diversity being good things for people to experience and for polities to have. Time and again, having a wide and diverse group, or tribe, or nation is superior, clearly, to monoculture alternatives.”

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