A Rival Most Vial

This cozy fantasy queer romance was a delight!

(I received a digital advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review)

Great cast of characters, great friendships. The plot is low stakes, but still eventful and exciting. The main characters are just lovely, and I really appreciated the dual POV.

I'm not much of a romance reader, so I don't know all the tropes, but I felt like this enemies-to-lovers relationship felt natural and sweet. It isn't a spicy book by any means. It feels like we're given just enough to feel the passion and heat, while still respecting their privacy.

All my cozy fantasy needs were met. There's tea, there's cookies, there's reading and book shopping, all in a magical world with adventurers, wands, potions, and dragons. I grew to really love this city carved into a chasm, and I want to know more. Very excited for the rest of the series!

This one is probably my favourite read this year so far. I absolutely fell in love with this story and all the characters and I could talk about it endlessly. The best way I think I can describe it is imagine if there was a Diagon Alley in the Lord of the Rings universe and two shopkeepers who hated each other were forced to work together ...and fell in love in the process! It's absolutely perfect and I wouldn't change a single dot!

If you like m/m romance, enemies to lovers, magic, found family, cozy fantasy (that is not boring/slow paced at all!!) with LGBT+ characters (gay, bi, nb and ace representation!!), this one is for you!

DNF - PG 133

Why?

Because the more I read this book, the less I actually want the couple to get together.

On the one hand, I was loving this book so much. I am discovering a deep, deep love for cozy fantasy books. I love how we are focused on characters that would be NPC's in any video game. ... I especially am finding myself loving the cozy fantasies where someone owns a shop of some kind. And this one is all about a group of just such people.

The secondary characters are not super well developed, but I didn't really expect them to be. They are an awesome friend group, though, and if the focus had been on them, I would have had a blast.

And I really do like Ambrose. He is flawed, but believably so. I have a solid grasp on his personality and he's understandable.

On the other hand, I feel a deep, abiding hatred for the romance. To be fair, I am not a fan of enemies-to-lovers. I know this about myself. I still read them sometimes if everything else about the book sounds perfect. (Like this book.) But the only time I ever bought into the romance was in the first ten, maybe fifteen percent. That's...I mean, when the longer I go in a story, the less I ship the romance, that's not a good sign.

In the first - I'll say - fifteen percent, the rivalry was amusing. They were both obviously flustered and flummoxed about each other and I was pretty okay with the idea that they were endgame. Then they started using words directed to hurt. Honestly, I will never recover from Ambrose opening up a little and Eli being extremely cruel with his words. That was like a smack in the face to me being able to ship them. But then it gets so much worse when it does something I have literally never come across before in an enemies-to-lovers:

They started trying to physically hurt each other. Thrown punches. Knock downs so hard I'm pretty sure a bone broke. Kicking at legs while the other person is running.

This is not something I'm okay shipping. At all.

And Eli's character is very underdeveloped. See, the rivalry comes from both Ambrose and Eli trying to operate the same type of business literally across the street from each other. They are threatening each other's livelihood and future. At least supposedly, in theory.

You see, Ambrose knows no other work, no other way of life. He obviously loves what he does and takes pride and pleasure in it.

For Eli, on the other hand, this is just the most recent in a long string of jobs. I was giving him the benefit of the doubt that maybe this was really his future, but before the 40% point of the book (pretty sure before the 30% point, before Eli and Ambrose ever have one decent conversation) Eli is already wanting to do something different. He's panicking over the thought of doing this work for the ret of his life. Then, just a little later on, he's avoiding his work, wanting to stay out later in the evenings, ect. This is not someone who wants to do this work and wants to fight for it, this is someone that's already bored of it and is simply acting like a petulant child.

I could almost, maybe, see them being friends. But to have an intimate relationship with a person that shows this level of disregard to you? I don't like this - and all I can do is wonder if during an argument, they will resort to punching each other or shoving each other. Because the precedence has been set. (Also, there's obviously a disregard for honesty when words can be used to hurt instead, that leaves me worried about their arguments.)

So with how anti-ship I am feeling, it's healthier for me to just drop this book and...be disappointed when it started off so well.

It was a fun read, just not great. Decent cozy fantasy story.

Also maybe this is just me but the last couple of cozy fantasy stories I've read all had gay relationships and I think it's starting to feel forced.

Some of my favorite stories focus on the people that wouldn't normally be considered the protagonist. They'd be the quest-givers in a game, and they'd be living an ordinary life outside of the high tension action that the heroes would struggle to overcome. A Rival Most Vial follows two potionmakers, and it's a cozy wholesome fantasy with sugar sweet romance.