A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland
Published by Tor Publishing Group
Age Group: Adult
Format: Fiction
Genres and Categories: Alternative Universe, Brown Characters, Gay Characters, Mental Health Representation, Epic Fantasy, Political Fantasy, Romantasy, Family Drama, Fealty, Magic Users, Royalty Characters, Mental Health, Metal Magic, Various Magic, Ottoman Empire
Series: Mahisti Dynasty #1, The Chants and the Wide World #1
My Rating:
Published on: 30th August 2022
Pages: 544
Disability Representation: Anxiety, Mental Health, Panic Attacks
Buy this Book! Amazon UK / Amazon US / Barnes & Noble / Blackwells / Bookshop.org US / Bookshop.org UK / Waterstones / BookBeat Audio
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Kadou, the shy prince of Arasht, finds himself at odds with one of the most powerful ambassadors at court—the body-father of the queen's new child—in an altercation which results in his humiliation.

To prove his loyalty to the queen, his sister, Kadou takes responsibility for the investigation of a break-in at one of their guilds, with the help of his newly appointed bodyguard, the coldly handsome Evemer, who seems to tolerate him at best. In Arasht, where princes can touch-taste precious metals with their fingers and myth runs side by side with history, counterfeiting is heresy, and the conspiracy they discover could cripple the kingdom’s financial standing and bring about its ruin.

This book was provided for free by NetGalley and the publishers in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this book!

Content Warnings:

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Please note that this review for A Taste of Gold and Iron discusses mental health, particularly living with anxiety, in detail.

If you are feeling particularly vulnerable right now, then this may not be the best read for you. I say that with love and kindness as someone who has anxiety and depression. I do not want anyone to be triggered because of me <3

Despite having probably the most gorgeous cover I’ve seen this year, A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland was not one of those books that I picked because of its cover! It was recommended on Twitter, and I had to go check it out myself. I am so glad I did because it is perfect for GeekDis! It has the best anxiety representation I’ve seen.

Reminiscent of the Ottoman Empire, A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland is a tale of fealty, politics and desire. Sister of the sultan, Kadou is Prince of the kingdom of Arasht and Duke of the Harbors. When his sister gives birth to a daughter, he is relieved to no longer be heir. While others might have been interested in the throne, Kadou would prefer to be out of the spotlight. From a young age, he has felt the weight of responsibility, so much so that it feels like it is suffocating him. He is terrified to do anything in case his actions cause something to happen, to harm someone. It is a lesson he and his sister were painfully taught by tutors after their parents died, leaving the two young children orphans and under the care of the state. While his sister was slightly older and able to process the lesson, Kadou was not, and the trauma developed into chronic anxiety.

When an altercation with the body father of the sultan’s child turns ugly and leads to some serious consequences, Kadou is not just humiliated; he loses access to his kahya, a personal bodyguard, who had been helping him with his anxiety. His new bodyguard, Evemer, is completely different to Tadek, stiff and formal, and Kadou is certain that Evemer hates him. To redeem himself in the eyes of the court, he takes responsibility for investigating the break-in at the shipbuilder’s guild in his role as Duke of the Harbors. The investigation soon leads to a much bigger conspiracy involving counterfeiting, one that could lead to the ruin of the kingdom and that Kadou is uniquely qualified to help solve. He can touch-taste precious metals with their fingers, telling which coins are real and which are fake.

When Evemer first joins Kadou’s service, he is fresh out of training to be a kahyalar, one of the loyal guards dedicated to serving the royal family. The kahyalar (kahya singular) are trained in a variety of subjects, not just defence; they are the future ministers of government and military. They are not just guards or bodyguards; the relationship they have with the royal family is very personal. It is about fealty, of swearing an oath and giving yourself completely to that person for the duration of that oath (in a non-sexual capacity unless both consent). The kahylar do everything for the royals, including clothing and bathing them, and they do it out of choice, not servitude. In return, they are treated with respect, as people with voices and opinions of their own. As Kadou explains to someone from outside Arasht, they trust them with their lives, and if they trust them when to draw a sword, how could they not trust them when to hold their tongue?

Evemer is chosen for being new and also for his exemplary record. The sultan wants someone who will not grow as close to Kadou as his last khaya, with whom he ended up becoming lovers with and political complications ensued, resulting in the death of two kahaylar. So when Kadou thinks that Evemer hates him, he’s not far off because the rumour mill has been spinning, and as usual, it doesn’t know the full story. Evemer is the complete opposite of Kadou, and he grows very frustrated with him at first. He has no idea what is happening, why the prince of the realm is such a mess; however, beneath Evemer’s stiff exterior is a kind heart and a devotion to his duty. He made an oath, and he is damn well going to do that job to the best of his ability!

As the two of them unravel the mystery of the break-in and the counterfeiting, Evemer unravels the mystery of Kadou and realises that his original judgments were based on incorrect information. The longer he spends time with the prince, he realises how much Kadou struggles every day, and he starts to help him. Their relationship grows, and yes, it’s going where you think it is: straight into bed. This is a book that was promoted with a whole bunch of tropes, and personally, I don’t mind. Their relationship is beautiful, it’s sweet as can be, and the sex scenes are saucy and hot!

I made the mistake of looking through some reviews, and once again, I can’t help but feel that many people have no grasp on what living with a chronic health condition or disability is like. Kadou’s anxiety isn’t the butterflies in your stomach feeling you have before a big event or an interview. It’s huge, all encompassing, overwhelming and more importantly, chronic. I don’t think many people understand that there is a very big difference between feeling anxious and chronic anxiety. It is in every single thing you do. You hear a noise, and your mind fills in the blanks. Someone says something even remotely suggestive, and you wonder if you did something. Rowland does a brilliant job of showing this in the way Kadou thinks through every single interaction with people.

I found A Taste of Gold and Iron to be a very authentic account of someone living with chronic anxiety, at least in my experience. This may contradict other people’s experiences with anxiety, and that doesn’t mean mine or theirs is incorrect. Anxiety is such a diverse condition as all mental health conditions are, and I’m going to break down what parts spoke loudly to me.

Kadou’s thought patterns were hard to follow because they were all over the place. When my anxiety is flaring, my thoughts are not linear. They don’t even make sense sometimes, especially if paranoia is involved. I was nodding as I read through Kadou’s thoughts, tracking his processes and thinking how they made sense to me. It’s not just me; I’ve experienced being around other people with chronic anxiety, and I have seen them react to the tiniest things, to pick up on something I have said and react to it. I’ve been in both Kadou and Evemer places, and there aren’t enough words to explain how wonderful it was just to be seen so explicitly.

I know that this type of thought process is a lot because I live with it every. single. day. I would ask readers to remember that when they’re reading this book. What you may find annoying is a reality for many of us. It may not be for everyone, and that is fair enough, but please consider for a moment that books like A Taste of Gold and Iron are extremely important because they open readers’ eyes to situations they cannot/do not access. I would not wish a mental health condition on anyone; however, one day someone you care about may have one and yes, a saucy fiction book can help you understand them better.

Rowland writes Kadou as a complete mess, and that is because that is what chronic, untreated anxiety does to a person. Chronic anxiety has very real and long-term effects on the body, all of which Rowland shows in A Taste of Gold and Iron. As a result of his anxiety, Kadou isn’t sleeping properly, and he’s not eating unless prompted. This, in turn, leads to more health problems as his body is not getting the rest or nourishment that it needs. All of this has physical and mental effects that stack on top of what was already happening in the body. So yes, Kadou is a mess. Who wouldn’t be?

In A Taste of Gold and Iron, mental health doesn’t even exist as a concept; there is definitely not any treatment for it. Kadou refers to his anxiety as his “cowardice”; he doesn’t recognise himself as ill and refuses to get medical help because no one will believe him. Unfortunately, mental health stigma is still very much alive and kicking, and too many people feel this way. I appreciate that Rowland went down this path instead of writing scenes with a healer/doctor; it gave it much more authenticity. This is also the first book where I’ve ever seen an author properly tackle the trauma of inheritance of young rulers and the weight of royalty on their heads, rather than portraying it as luxury and power. For someone with anxiety or a mental health condition, power and responsibility are terrifying.

I personally felt very seen by Evemer as someone who appears very strict, sticks to rules and keeps their head down to do their job. When I was working, I was that person, and I don’t feel like enough characters quite capture what Rowland did with him here. The way he thought things through and reacted to certain scenarios was very familiar. There were a lot of great characters in A Taste of Gold and Iron, and even if I didn’t particularly like them, they were very dimensional. I particularly liked how realistic the sultan was with a life wrapped up in politics and pomp, and how she was fed up with not being able to just be a person. Zeliha longed to just take a day off and just do silly stuff with her brother like they used to do as a kid, and it reinforced how trapped both siblings were in their roles as rulers.

There are a lot of layers and emotions in this book; however, there is humour mixed with the dread, angst and anxiety. Although it occurs to me that some of the humour might appeal more to people with anxiety. For example, Kadou is talking to himself, and his brain is responding. He has conversations with his own fear, and I was just sitting there like…. yup, so done this. There’s a particular one where he’s talking himself into action when he hears something in the room, and he’s saying to it, Are we just going to lie here and let ourselves be torn apart by a tiger?! I live in Britain as opposed to an exotic fantasy location, so I’ve never jumped at a tiger, but I have legitimately lain in a bed when home alone and heard a noise, and my anxiety has jumped to Is that a cat or a bird coming in the window? It’s not big enough or loud enough for a person, so I have logically ruled that out, but a small animal is perfectly possible. As I have several chronic health conditions, I talk out loud to my body all the time, not just to my head or in my head. So I loved Kadou’s random conversations, and I found them comfortingly amusing.

I’ve said a lot of positive things about A Taste of Gold and Iron, but as you can see, it’s a three and a half star not a five-star. I have no familiarity with the Ottoman Empire or Turkish; I did not even recognise that the language in the book was Turkish until I read some reviews. Likewise, other people have spoken about the inclusion of a well-known Muslim slur. My opinion is that if you can take the time to create an entire fantasy world, you can create new words in a language. We’re not talking about going full Tolkien and creating an entire language; we’re talking about a selection of words. There is no need to appropriate a language or to include a slur. I feel that some authors forget that they are the masters of their own universe and have the power to do things like this. This book is promoted as being reminiscent of the Ottoman Empire, not based on it, so again, the room for creativity is there. There was no need for the cultural appropriation.

Then there’s the counterfeit plot, which, to be honest, was very obvious and at times felt like it got a bit forgotten. The main focus of this book is the journey, the characters and their relationships. While the metal touch-tasting is very interesting, the plot of A Taste of Gold and Iron is Kadou and Evemer’s relationship. A lot of the information about finances and economics that came with the counterfeiting plot, I have to admit, I skimmed a lot of it. I would have liked a bit more magic, but I’ve seen Rowland mention something about small magic systems on Twitter, so from that, I gather that was never going to be a large part of the world-building for her. It certainly did make things a bit more interesting.

I keep finding books like A Taste of Gold and Iron where they have excellent representation in some ways and then fail in others. I would ask that people keep an open mind when reading A Taste of Gold and Iron, not because of the author’s mistakes, but because it can give you some insight into what it is like to have chronic anxiety. Even if you can’t finish it or it’s not to your taste, please try to look at it in the way I have described it. As I said, one day you may find yourself in Evemer’s shoes and looking after someone with a mental health condition.

About Alexandra Rowland

Alexandra Rowland is the author of several fantasy books, including A Conspiracy Of Truths, A Choir Of Lies, and Some by Virtue Fall, as well as a Hugo Award-nominated podcaster (all sternly supervised by their feline quality control manager). They hold a degree in world literature, mythology, and folklore from Truman State University.

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Thank you for joining me for the second day of GeekDis and my review of A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland! This was a long one, and I hope I didn’t bore you with all the details. It was a lot to get out, but this was an important one for me. You can read the second part of my Disability Story to find out more about how I struggled with anxiety when I was in high school.

Don’t forget to check out the rest of my reviews if you’re looking for some more book recommendations 🙂 You can also now sign up for my newsletter to get an email each month with a list of my new reviews!

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