★★★★☆ If Wodehouse wrote sex scenes

A Restless truth

Freya Marske

In the first book of Freya Marske's Last Binding series, we learned that long ago the fae, upon departing England, made a contract with the people of England, and from that contract they derive their magic. The contract is inherent in three physical objects: a coin, a cup, and a knife. Almost a hundred years ago four women found the objects and took custody of them. Now the English Magical Establishment wants to get its hands on them. "Wants" in this case means "is willing to kill for". Indeed, they killed one of the woman, Flora Sutton, and now hold the coin.

Edwin Courcey inherited Flora Sutton's estate and notes -- thus he and his partner Robin Blythe know who held the other two contract bits. One of these, Beth Godwin, married (thus she is now Beth Navenby) and moved to America long ago. Robin's sister Maud has gone to America to meet her and is now accompanying her on her return to England. But on the very first day of the voyage Mrs Navenby is killed, magically.

Maud sets out to investigate the murder, and to recover the cup. Her brother Robin has visions of the future, and Maud has a notebook in which he wrote down everything he saw about this journey. In many of this visions he saw a woman, whom he called "Heather", and even drew a picture of. Maud immediately recognizes "Heather" at the first meal of the cruise. "Heather", it turns out, is a disgraced Englishwoman named Violet Debenham, who's been making her living as an actress in New York. Maud falls hard for Violet.

The best thing about A Restless Truth is Maud Blythe. She is a lovable and admirable character. A Restless Truth is peppered with one-line character sketches of Maud, like this one: "Artlessness loosened tongues as effectively as the colder forms of manipulation." Maud knows it -- her artlessness is not as artless as it appears.

The tone of A Restless Truth is different from A Marvellous Light. Marske explains in her Acknowledgements

I wrote this book during the latter half of 2020, which didn’t look anything like we thought it would. All I wanted was to create something that would be fun. And, preferably, involve travel. Apologies and thanks to my editor, Ruoxi, for letting me follow an English manor house book about vulnerability and wallpaper with a bubbly Wodehousian romp.

And it is! Fun, I mean. Even what Marske delicately referred to in A Marvellous Light as "the sexy bits" have a sense of fun.

I enjoyed A Restless Truth more than A Marvellous Light. I liked Maud (and also Violet) more than I had Robin and Edwin. And the playfulness worked for me.

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