A Taste of Gold and Iron

Written by Alexandra Rowland

Narrated by Casey Jones

A place in your home. A place at your hearth.

Kadou, the shy prince of Arast, 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 that 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 Arast, 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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781705065198

Alexandra Rowland

Alexandra Rowland is the author of A Conspiracy of Truths, A Choir of Lies, and Finding Faeries, and occasionally, a bespoke seamstress under the stern supervision of their feline quality control manager. They hold a degree in world literature, mythology, and folklore from Truman State University, and they are one of three hosts of the Hugo Award–nominated literary podcast, Be the Serpent. Find them at AlexandaRowland.net, on Twitter @_AlexRowland, or wandering the woods of western Massachusetts.

Reviews for A Taste of Gold and Iron

[tornadox-962417 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

What happens when a prince and a guard who each take their duties of care very seriously collide. I remember Alex talking about a book she was working on about a M/M romance with a huge fealty kink. This is that book.

[Kam · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I'm gonna do a good-bad sandwich review.

The narrator of this book did a good job. I liked the setting and the overall atmosphere of the book.

This book needed a good developmental editor. It's not a slow burn. It's was like a bag of popcorn that took 13 hours to cook, never fully pops before it gets burnt, and then the book was over.

At about 75% of the book at what should have been one of the most critical, high-impact and plot driven moments of the book, the characters made a series of transparently stupid choices and got themselves quite unnecessarily into trouble. It was excruciating. But luckily the villains were equally transparent and inept so it ended up working out?

Characters in power often made confusing and unsubstantiated decisions about things that made no sense.

Okay, the good. The character development was good. The romance was sweet and I was there for it. The writing itself was good. I enjoyed some of the side characters, and it got real belly laughs out of me a few times.

It's was a meh sandwich for me, personally.

[Susan Grunner · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Suuuuper slow build up. Both of these characters are amazing, I just want to cuddle them. They feel real, and the book does a great job of showing their faults and troubles in an honest way. It's a really touching bodyguard romance. Neither is the himbo character but they both take turns being clueless about things.

The anxiety in the first half felt real, but it was largely ignored in the second half for plot reasons, which felt a bit dishonest, but seems to be common with books that depict anxiety.

[Ray · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Incredible narration!! This book was made to be listened to, and the narrator makes the characters and names come to life in a way reading it could not.

The first 560 pages of this book are an absolutely perfect slow burn. The love between each of the characters is wholesome, healing, and crushing. It’s so easy to fall in love with each of them. Absolutely 10/10.

Then the anticipation and plot fizzle out in the last 40 pages. The character development is so beautiful, and that contrasts sharply with the rushed plot and muted resolution. It feels unfinished- hopefully there’s a sequel.

Absolutely worth the read and absolutely will leave you wishing for more.

[Danielle Driscoll · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Casey Jones brought Alex Rowland’s amazing characters to life here

[Caitlin Meuser · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was well written and I really enjoyed the characters. I will say that I think it was longer than needed and I wish there was more spice. But the world building was beautiful.

[marliese-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A bit long-winded and very slow-burn, but I really like the story. Good world-building, compelling characters.

[jmchshannon · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland left me pleasantly surprised. I was not expecting to enjoy it as much as I did because there isn’t much to it. The plot is simple. A prince, who has zero self-esteem, decides to step up and investigate a mysterious plot. That’s it. That’s the story. There is magic and romance, but it is a basic plot. I enjoyed A Taste of Gold and Iron because of the setting. It is so lush and exotic, and I couldn’t get enough of it. The romance is a bonus.

[tuusannuuska-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Kadou is the prince of a nation modeled after the Ottoman Empire, in a timeline set in the late 16th century. His sister, the sultan, has just given birth to Kadou’s niece, to his immense relief. However, turmoil is brewing and Kadou finds himself at the center of it, and as a result falls out of favor with the sultan, a little bit.

“A man could be good, but a prince? A prince could only be good enough. He could, if he tried his utmost, meet expectations. But they were far, far too high for anyone to be able to exceed them.”
The Empire is a fictional one, and even a little bit fantastical, but the magical elements are slight enough that this reads more like historical romance than fantasy. The society is matriarchal and the people of the land are pretty diverse. Gender and sexuality aren’t qualities that determine a person’s value, and mostly goes unaddressed. (For example, there are three genders and this is never explained, rather you figure it out from the third gender pronouns. There is one reference to the third gender in a discussion about who people are attracted to, and a brief comment about how a character’s broken ribs weren’t so bad off because they were being held together by their binder.)

The story is told from two points of view, Kadou the prince's, and that of Evemer, his sworn protector. The story is heavily character driven and very slow build, and focuses a lot on Kadou’s crippling anxiety, the pressures he feels he’s under, and the insidious self doubt and self flagellation he’s plagued by. Evemer, in turn, is very rule oriented, strict, and loyal. He takes his duties very seriously, and is at first as resentful of his new charge as he feels he can allow himself to be.

“Anger was a relief, in a way. It was easier than fear. He was so tired of fear, but he was helpless to resist it or fight it off. It was like heading into battle at sea against a fleet of ghost ships.”
There is a very fun cast of side characters that brings levity to the sometimes pretty serious goings on, and I particularly liked Melek, Tadek and Commander Eozena. I even laughed out loud, several times. The sultan is a bit of frustrating character in how she balances her roles as the ruler of the Empire as well as that of sister to Kadou.

The plot is there to further the (eventual) romance between Kadou and Evemer, and while interesting enough, the plot is not the point of the story. The romance itself is very slowly and meticulously built, taking into consideration the very heavy power imbalance between the characters as well as Kadou's role in society and the restrictions it creates on how much of his life and decisions are actually his own.

I read this book pretty slowly and annotated it along the way, and I feel like I got more out of it than I would have if I’d just read it through without stopping to chew a little on the various decisions of the different characters. All in all, I really ended up enjoying this, even if I’m not usually a huge fan of historical romance, particularly when the language is at times rather formal.

[rivkat_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Kadou is a prince with an undiagnosed, untreated anxiety disorder (and a magical talent, like a number of others in his country, for assessing the purity of metal). Evemer is his new bodyguard, assigned after an interaction with his sister the sultan’s lover went terribly wrong. He initially misunderstands Kadou’s anxiety as cowardice, but soon learns better. They fight crime! And fall in love. AO3 tags include: hurt/comfort, there was only one bed, mutual pining, and forced to marry (through circumstances that make it imperative that they not consummate their attraction).

[Justin Nash · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

the best part of the book was the romance ?

[familiar_diversions · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This takes place in the Ottoman Empire-inspired fantasy country of Araşt. It's a matriarchal society ruled by the House Mahisti. The current sultan is Zeliha, Kadou's sister, who has just had a baby, a little girl named Eyne. Kadou loves his sister and niece deeply. He's also reassured that their existence means it's slightly less likely that he might ever have to take the throne himself. Kadou is prone to anxiety and panic attacks (concepts that don't exist in this world, so he views it all as "cowardice"), and the thing that terrifies him the most is the degree to which other people's lives depend upon his behavior. He knows that would only grow worse if he gained more power.Unfortunately, Siranos, Eyne's body-father, can't comprehend someone in Kadou's position having so little ambition, so he's constantly suspicious that Kadou might try to overthrow Zeliha. Luckily, Zeliha knows her brother well and brushes off Siranos' concerns. However, things go very badly during a hunt and a couple of Kadou's kahyalar (basically bodyguards, but potentially with more political power?) end up dead or injured. Kadou blames himself - his anxiety about Siranos put them on edge, and as a result they misread the situation and treated Siranos as an enemy when they should not have. Zeliha spares the life of Tadek, Kadou's favorite kahyalar and occasional lover, but demotes him. She also temporarily bans Kadou from court, telling him to look into incidents involving counterfeit money in order to occupy his time and eventually give her an excuse to publicly forgive him. She also assigns him a new bodyguard, Evemer, who seems to dislike Kadou on sight.I pre-ordered this the instant I heard about it, because of a comparison to Katherine Addison's The Goblin Emperor. I became a bit concerned when I kept seeing initial reviews from people who'd been as excited about the book as I was but were then disappointed when they read it. However, I decided it'd maybe be fine as long as I approached it from more of a Winter's Orbit perspective - more emphasis on the m/m bodyguard romance, lower expectations for the fantasy politics. Basically, I figured I just needed to view it as a fantasy romance rather than a fantasy with romantic aspects.That worked reasonably well for a while, although the story still felt like it took longer than it should, even though I was settled in and prepared for a very slow-burn romance. Evemer's initial dislike of Kadou was rooted more in disappointment than anything - without realizing it, he'd put Kadou on a pedestal after a brief encounter some time prior, and the Kadou he was assigned to wasn't the glittering prince he'd expected. Kadou, meanwhile, was in something of an anxiety crisis and compensating for it by drinking a lot and otherwise self-sabotaging himself, which didn't exactly help with Evemer's perception of him.As the story progressed, the author leaned more heavily on the romance aspects. There was a tender hair-washing scene (which could have been timed better, considering how much of the court's loyalty was in doubt at that time), and Kadou had to pretend he and Evermer were lovers making out in a dark corner in order to throw off some enemies. Evermer had lots of moments when he couldn't help but notice how beautiful Kadou was, a feeling that his other duties allowed him to occasionally wallow in, since he and Tadek frequently got to choose Kadou's clothing and dress him.Speaking of Tadek, my decision to approach this book as a fantasy romance meant that his presence threw me a bit. Kadou and Tadek were lovers at the start of the book and had sex once, near the start of Evemer's assignment to Kadou. I wasn't sure how the author was planning to handle him, and I'm still not sure how I feel about how things turned out. Tadek basically had to force a "look, I went into this expecting it to be temporary and based primarily on sex, but I still need communication on where we stand" conversation. Kadou's anxiety didn't inherently make him a coward, but he did have a tendency to avoid doing hard things, like actually talking to his lover/employee/dependent about shifts in their relationship. So no, this didn't turn out to be a stealth poly romance. Once Kadou and Evemer started falling for each other, their focus stayed on each other (even if it took Kadou ages to finally talk to Tadek about any of it). The author leaned hard on the "fealty/loyalty is hot" aspect of Kadou and Evemer's relationship to the point where the story occasionally contradicted itself. For example, in one scene, Evemer proved his loyalty to Kadou and House Mahisti by agreeing to cut his own arm off just because Kadou asked it of him (Kadou stopped him before he went through with it, though). Later on, however, the author went to great pains to try to reassure readers and Kadou that Evemer really could say "no" to Kadou anytime he wanted, and that anything he agreed to do was something he genuinely wanted to do. While I agree that this reassurance was necessary considering the power imbalance in Kadou and Evemer's relationship, the "proof of loyalty" scene made it pretty much impossible to establish Evemer as someone with healthy boundaries where Kadou was concerned.While I do think that approaching this more as a fantasy romance rather than a fantasy with romantic aspects is overall the best way to go about it, it did leave me very annoyed with the ending, which set up the framework for a romance HEA but stopped before showing readers how any of it worked out. As far as I know, this book is supposed to be a standalone, but its ending would only work (barely) with a "to be continued."I suppose I should write something about the fantasy politics aspect before wrapping this up. Counterfeit currency is nearly unthinkable in Araşt, primarily because the country has lots of people (such as Kadou) who can "taste" the purity of metals via touch, and so counterfeiting would never get very far. It's also one of the country's strengths - since other countries don't have people who can "taste" a metal's purity, Araşt is the only country guaranteed to have trustworthy currency. Or something like that (why don't other countries hire touch-tasters from Araşt to regularly test their currency? No idea).Anyway, against all odds, someone is producing counterfeit currency in Araşt. Kadou and Evemer eventually figure out who, and the only reason they weren't discovered earlier was because they somehow got lots of highly placed people in Araşt to help them. I would have thought all of this (undermining the currency, putting the loyalty of what should have been the most trustworthy people in the country in doubt) would have taken up a good deal more of the ending, but it faded out pretty quickly once the villains were identified beyond a shadow of anyone's ability to doubt.I wish this had been written more firmly as a fantasy romance (follow through with that ending!) and tightened up a lot. It didn't need to be 500 pages.(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)