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Published Nov 2023
432 pages
Genre: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Publication Information
A Power Unbound is the final entry in Freya Marske's beloved, award-winning Last Binding trilogy, the queer historical fantasy series that began with A Marvellous Light.
Secrets! Magic! Enemies to...something more?
Jack Alston, Lord Hawthorn, would love a nice, safe, comfortable life. After the death of his twin sister, he thought he was done with magic for good. But with the threat of a dangerous ritual hanging over every magician in Britain, he's drawn reluctantly back into that world.
Now Jack is living in a bizarre puzzle-box of a magical London townhouse, helping an unlikely group of friends track down the final piece of the Last Contract before their enemies can do the same. And to make matters worse, they need the help of writer and thief Alan Ross.
Cagey and argumentative, Alan is only in this for the money. The aristocratic Lord Hawthorn, with all his unearned power, is everything that Alan hates. And unfortunately, Alan happens to be everything that Jack wants in one gorgeous, infuriating package.
When a plot to seize unimaginable power comes to a head at Cheetham Hall—Jack's ancestral family estate, a land so old and bound in oaths that it's grown a personality as prickly as its owner—Jack, Alan and their allies will become entangled in a night of champagne, secrets, and bloody sacrifice ... and the foundations of magic in Britain will be torn up by the roots before the end.
"A charming, heart-thumping close to a world and characters fans won't be ready to let go of." ―Booklist (starred review)
"[A] satisfying conclusion to a charming, queer historical fantasy trilogy." ―Library Journal (starred review)
"Marske's showstopping final Last Binding historical fantasy doubles down on all the romance and magic that made the previous books in the trilogy so delightful... . Marske again demonstrates her talent for balancing romance and fantasy action. This does the series proud." ―Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A Power Unbound takes everything that was being built up in A Marvellous Light and A Restless Truth and throws it in your face in a glorious climax that seems to solve both everything and nothing... . I honestly cannot recommend this series enough. The characters, the relationships, and the world-building are all amazing. The mysteries are compelling. With all three of these books, I could not put them down. And A Power Unbound is the perfect conclusion." ―The Geekiary
"Stunning―the writing is lush, the world-building is fascinating, and the romance is searing hot. I am completely obsessed with this story of unrepentantly dangerous people falling in love with one another." ―Cat Sebastian, author of The Queer Principles of Kit Webb
"A delightful, twisty, endlessly charming romp. I would travel anywhere with these characters."―Grace D. Li, New York Times bestselling author of Portrait of a Thief
This information about A Power Unbound was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Freya Marske is the author of A Restless Truth and A Marvellous Light, which was an international bestseller and won the Romantic Novel Award for Fantasy. Her work has appeared in Analog and has been shortlisted for three Aurealis Awards. She is also a Hugo-nominated podcaster, and won the Ditmar Award for Best New Talent. She lives in Australia.
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