Navola
Ratings14
Average rating3.9
Added to list2025 Favoriteswith 9 books.
"We always sit at the plank."
This is like if my favorite author, Guy Gavriel Kay, wrote Game of Thrones without gratuitous sex scenes and almost all political intrigue. Which is to say, yes please, more of this for me.
Navola is run by its bankers. Davico, son of Devonaci, is coming of age as part of the di Regulai family, shrewd, powerful merchants who have pull everywhere. Devonaci is a master businessman, and Davico spends all his days growing up comparing himself to his father and coming up short. But time doesn't care if you're not ready, and Davico finds himself thrust more and more frequently into the types of political intrigue he hates. His adopted sister, Celia, however is steeped in intrigues, and finds herself more than capable of navigating the twisty Navola mind. When things come to a political boil, though, Davico's naiveness may be his and his family's downfall.
Right off the bat I'll say that this isn't a book for just anyone. It's like...literary fantasy? Not a whole lot happens immediately, or at all. Some action-adjacent things happen around the 50% mark, and then again for the last quarter of the book, but by and large this is a character-driven political fantasy seen through a vaguely Italian lens. That appealed to me, but probably won't to an average fantasy reader. Yes there is a dragon (or...a part of a dragon, I guess), but I wouldn't call it a central character. The last quarter of the book is brutal though, and made me experience a large enough mental WTF that I spent a chunk of my cruise holed up in my cabin finishing the book to find out what happens.
My only hangups really was the ending and how the author basically (major ending spoilers here) wrote Celia out of the book. Yes, she does put in an appearance, but I was rather put out at how quickly/easily Davico washed his hands of her betrayal. I feel like something of that magnitude needed longer to marinate. But even that wasn't a large enough of an issue for me to not enjoy things thoroughly.
Recommend this for fans of Guy Gavriel Kay, and political/character-heavy fantasy.
"We always sit at the plank."
This is like if my favorite author, Guy Gavriel Kay, wrote Game of Thrones without gratuitous sex scenes and almost all political intrigue. Which is to say, yes please, more of this for me.
Navola is run by its bankers. Davico, son of Devonaci, is coming of age as part of the di Regulai family, shrewd, powerful merchants who have pull everywhere. Devonaci is a master businessman, and Davico spends all his days growing up comparing himself to his father and coming up short. But time doesn't care if you're not ready, and Davico finds himself thrust more and more frequently into the types of political intrigue he hates. His adopted sister, Celia, however is steeped in intrigues, and finds herself more than capable of navigating the twisty Navola mind. When things come to a political boil, though, Davico's naiveness may be his and his family's downfall.
Right off the bat I'll say that this isn't a book for just anyone. It's like...literary fantasy? Not a whole lot happens immediately, or at all. Some action-adjacent things happen around the 50% mark, and then again for the last quarter of the book, but by and large this is a character-driven political fantasy seen through a vaguely Italian lens. That appealed to me, but probably won't to an average fantasy reader. Yes there is a dragon (or...a part of a dragon, I guess), but I wouldn't call it a central character. The last quarter of the book is brutal though, and made me experience a large enough mental WTF that I spent a chunk of my cruise holed up in my cabin finishing the book to find out what happens.
My only hangups really was the ending and how the author basically (major ending spoilers here) wrote Celia out of the book. Yes, she does put in an appearance, but I was rather put out at how quickly/easily Davico washed his hands of her betrayal. I feel like something of that magnitude needed longer to marinate. But even that wasn't a large enough of an issue for me to not enjoy things thoroughly.
Recommend this for fans of Guy Gavriel Kay, and political/character-heavy fantasy.
