The Unbroken

C.L. Clark's Unbroken is what happens when colonial revolt, powerful women with muscular arms, and Sapphic yearning crash together in a fiery fantasy epic. Set against an elegantly elaborate, North African-inspired landscape, the story turns around Touraine, a soldier suffering under split loyalties, and Luca, a princess passionately pursuing her promised throne (and occasionally her sense). 

Clark's composition is sharp-edged, swift, and gorgeously ruthless. Her characters, often caught stumbling through dubious decisions, come alive with genuine, often distressing, humanity. After all, to err is human! Clear your calendar (and maybe your voice) if you delight in shouting affectionate rebukes at fictional figures who firmly ignore you. 

Political intrigues simmer, rebellions fester, and morally murky waters always hide whatever is just beneath the surface, but the real gem? Touraine and Luca's yearning, fiercely oblivious and always simmering. Their slow-burning relationship doesn't just smolder before catching flame; it inches achingly along, making you pine with every missed sign. If you're anything like me, you'll beg aloud for signals to be picked up on, stars to align, and for hearts to meet and then stay together for at least three hundred pages. 

Prepare yourself for a story whose title resonates through the tale itself in ways you won't soon forget, at least if your fantasy inclination is toward clever plots, tangled uprisings against colonialism, and romances rife with slow burns.