A Discovery of Witches (All Souls, #1)
by Deborah Harkness
Brutal quantities of borderline-abusive heterosexual kink in this otherwise inoffensive disposable urban fantasy. I know how common "strong independent woman falls for overprotective, controlling man and likes it" kinks are among straight people, but y'all need to negotiate that shit properly.
I was going to see if I could think of anything else to say about this book, but... no, not really.
Not great sequence of events:
0. main character puts up token resistance to getting Protected and Taken Care Of,
1. main character get kidnapped,
2. the kidnapper points out all the ways her special new instahusband is abusive and controlling,
3. you're cheering on the kidnapper and hoping this is a turning point in the story/relationship,
4. the kidnapper proceeds to torture main character near unto death,
5. main character spends the rest of the book getting PROTECTED and TAKEN CARE OF but now she's so traumatized she appreciates it.
A few points returned for ~witchy maiden aunts~ who are explicitly witches and explicitly married to each other? IDK, that's a trope I can get behind.
ALSO ALSO: [complaints about fantasy political systems] global government of tens of millions by an unelected board of 9 people (9!!) is a weird system of government and a very weird thing to replicate when you plot to overthrow the existing government.