Books › A Restless Truth
A Restless Truth
416 pages
A sparkling, locked-room magical murder mystery wrapped in a swoony, opposites-attract sapphic romance.
What it feels like
Reading this feels like sipping champagne on a glamorous, slightly dangerous ocean voyage. It perfectly balances the delightfully claustrophobic tension of a locked-room murder mystery with the breathless pacing of an opposites-attract romance. The narrative sparkles with sharp banter, moving effortlessly between witty repartee and moments of profound, tender vulnerability. As the characters navigate magical conspiracies and dead bodies, the true emotional core lies in the joyful, messy process of dropping societal masks and embracing repressed desires. The prose is lush and playful, leaning into the inherent fun of an Edwardian shipboard caper while delivering genuine emotional depth and intense romantic heat. It is a thoroughly delightful read for anyone who loves their historical fantasy served with a side of scandal, magic, and unapologetic queer joy.
- Mood
- glamorous
- sparkling
- breezy
- suspenseful
- Tone
- witty
- playful
- earnest
- romantic
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- sexual awakening · dropping societal masks · queer joy · vulnerability and trust
- The writing
- Sparkling and banter-heavy, balancing sharp period wit with lush, emotionally resonant romantic beats.
- The arc
- Moves from the thrill of unexpected danger and guarded attraction to a joyful, fiercely vulnerable romantic triumph.
- Who it's for
- Readers who love locked-room mysteries, Edwardian glamour, and opposites-attract sapphic romances with plenty of banter and spice.
Content notes
- murder
- explicit sexual content
- period-typical homophobia
- mild violence
About the book
A Restless Truth is the second entry in Freya Marske’s beloved, award-winning Last Binding trilogy, the queer historical fantasy series that began with A Marvellous Light.
Magic! Murder! Shipboard romance!
Maud Blyth has always longed for adventure. She expected plenty of it when she volunteered to serve as an old lady’s companion on an ocean liner, in order to help her beloved older brother unravel a magical conspiracy that began generations ago.
What she didn’t expect was for the old lady in question to turn up dead on the first day of the voyage. Now she has to deal with a dead body, a disrespectful parrot, and the lovely, dangerously outrageous Violet Debenham, who’s also returning home to England. Violet is everything that Maud has been trained to distrust yet can’t help but desire: a magician, an actress, and a magnet for scandal.
Surrounded by the open sea and a ship full of suspects, Maud and Violet must first drop the masks that they’ve both learned to wear before they can unmask a murderer and somehow get their hands on a magical object worth killing for—without ending up dead in the water themselves.
Description from Open Library.
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