5⭐️🫑
I've gotten behind on my blog posting. I had some looming ARC deadlines so I ploughed through three books in only a few days. So first off, Fount and Fortune by Mickey Schoonover. I received the ARC of the second book. I read the prologue and about a page of the first chapter and decided I really needed to read book one to know what was going on. I'm glad I did. This duology is amazing. It's an alternative history dystopian set in a Fascist Dictatorship in Florida. A governor appointed by the Spanish government during colonization of Florida back in ~1516 stumbled on the fountain of youth. He declared himself the Conquistador and kept control of the Fount. He used the healing abilities of the water to become immortal basically. Florida became the Empire Eternal and the book takes place more or less in present day 565 years later. The FMC, Evangeline, is a farm worker who lives and works on the Conq's personal farm El Jardin. Her family have been the foreman of the farm for generations. The MMC, Rafe, has a backstory that unfolds rather slowly. He and his best friend Twain help people by fabricating new identities for them. The Citadel, the capitol of the Empire, and the Empire itself works on a strictly enforced class system. You must have money and stature to be of any importance here. Rafe and Twain help people get into the Citadel in the first place or move up in society. Evan has a younger sister, Juniper who gets diagnosed with cancer. They lost their mother in a farm accident not quite 2 years prior so Evan refuses to loose another family member. She comes up with a crazy plan to sneak out of the farm, travel through the super dangerous Wildlands and get to the Citadel where she'll auction herself into indentured servitude at the Obligor Expo. With the money she earns selling herself at the Expo she can buy her sister an Immersion in the Fount. Rafe is the one who buys her by outbidding a scumbag they helped get into the Citadel as a favor. Rafe knows said scumbag wouldn't treat her well and feels responsible because they made this man essentially. Rafe has no need of a servant and is super private so is also uncomfortable having another person in his home and his and Twain's enterprise isn't exactly legal, so he's worried if he can trust her. She is wary about trusting him. She's also under a time limit because of Juni's cancer. She eventually tells him why she's there. What she didn't realize is that one, her work contract would never pay for an Immersion and even if she could get enough money, they'd never allow someone like Juni near the Fount. Lowly farm workers from El Jardin are not worthy enough. (Laborers and other low level people fell into this as well.) She refuses to give up though and Rafe comes up with a plan. I don't want to get into too much here but part of this is getting back to El Jardin and convincing their father to let her go with them to the Citadel. Circumstances of the Wildlands slow them down. There are more factions and powers at play here but I don't want to give away too much of the plot. Rafe and Evan make it back to El Jardin, get Juni and then get back to the Citadel. At the end of book one Rafe and Juni get separated from Evan.
Evan is captured and tossed in jail. Rafe and Juni are able to escape. So this book openes up with Rafe needing to get Juni back to El Jardin to her father, so he can then get back to Evan and try to rescue her. Also I should mention that sparks of revolution are seeded in book one. Remember those other factions I mentioned previously. Those threads all come together in book two. Rafe develops quite a few relationships with key people in book one. All of these converge in book two. Evan gets pulled out of prison by the Conq to become one of his personal servants. So she's in the most dangerous position possible mostly to pull Rafe out of the woodwork.
I wish I could say more but again I don't want to give too much away. This duology was excellent. The first book is only a little steamy, the second book only has one mildly spicy scene in the epilogue. They were both so well written. All the side characters have great depth, there is humor and lots of yearning in the second book. I really enjoyed this duology and I love that its now completed. Check them out!
Comments
Post a Comment