A Power Unbound (The Last Binding, 3)
Lord Hawthorn is a magician who has lost his magic. He is one of the two protagonists in A Power Unbound, which concludes Freya Marske’s The Last Binding trilogy, set in Edwardian England. The trilogy is a queer historical fantasy where society consists of the magical and the mortal, and the benign use of magic is in great jeopardy. In the first two novels, Hawthorn was a delightfully arrogant and rude character. In A Power Unbound, we see Hawthorn from the inside, and his backstory is gradually revealed. The novel opens with a vivid scene from sixteen years before the main action, when Jack (Lord Hawthorn) loses his magic and his twin sister loses her mind.
In this third instalment of the story, the historical setting is much less to the forefront than in the previous two novels, A Marvellous Light and A Restless Truth. Instead, the focus is on queer romance and erotica and the menace of the thriller storyline.
The second protagonist is Alan Ross, a journalist and writer of pornography who is living on the breadline, trying to keep his family out of the worst of poverty. With Alan’s career as an erotic writer – The Roman – and his relationship with Lord Hawthorn, Marske explores the nature of fantasy and fantasy writing.
Marske has a lot of story to unfold and threads to tie up in this final novel and, at times, that emphasis on plot shows. The complex cast of characters and plot are not always as deftly handled as in the previous two novels. One of the strengths of the story is the way in which the houses and country estates of the (mainly aristocratic) magicians respond to their owners and enemies. Marske’s is a highly original voice, and this is an eminently readable trilogy.
