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Saffron and Honey - How Should I Know You?
Bi-sapphic Romance / Faerie Fantasy / Cybernetic Sci-fi / Pre-dystopian Near-future / Disability / Transmasc Lead
Ravi Beausoleil has never had a woman who tastes like honey before – because there’s not a woman made on Earth who does, obviously. And you’d think a material chemist wrapping up their post-grad thesis would be pretty good at figuring out the make-up of even the strangest things, no matter where they’re made. So, frankly, it’s kind of embarrassing just how long it takes them to figure out what that summer-scented, gemstone-eyed, nectar-flavored puppy-dog of a woman crashing on their couch is really made of. But hey, to be fair, it’s a pretty convincing prison of a human body for the poor unfortunate faerie stuck living out her eternal exile in it. And it’s just as well Ravi doesn’t know, because if they ever found out exactly how much their relentless generosity was hurting that poor debt-bound creature, they’d probably drink themself into oblivion and throw themself in the river for it.
Saffron and Honey is a bi-sapphic fantasy romance set in a modern world plagued with a mysterious terminal illness that only one tech giant in the world seems to have the treatment for. It’s a mysterious terminal illness that Ravi is convinced is going to kill them in a few years. It’s also a mysterious terminal illness Ravi’s poor indebted faerie boarder is convinced she can cure to get out of her agonizing debt to them – and maybe even to the whole of humanity, if she plays her hand right. And since she’s the cleverest and most powerful faerie in the universe, she always plays her hand right. …Except… that time. And that other time. Ah… right… and there was that other time… Look everyone makes mistakes and when you’ve been around for thousands of years you’re bound to have a few on your record. But this time, it’ll go perfect. For sure. It has to.
Ravi Beausoleil has never had a woman who tastes like honey before – because there’s not a woman made on Earth who does, obviously. And you’d think a material chemist wrapping up their post-grad thesis would be pretty good at figuring out the make-up of even the strangest things, no matter where they’re made. So, frankly, it’s kind of embarrassing just how long it takes them to figure out what that summer-scented, gemstone-eyed, nectar-flavored puppy-dog of a woman crashing on their couch is really made of. But hey, to be fair, it’s a pretty convincing prison of a human body for the poor unfortunate faerie stuck living out her eternal exile in it. And it’s just as well Ravi doesn’t know, because if they ever found out exactly how much their relentless generosity was hurting that poor debt-bound creature, they’d probably drink themself into oblivion and throw themself in the river for it.
Saffron and Honey is a bi-sapphic fantasy romance set in a modern world plagued with a mysterious terminal illness that only one tech giant in the world seems to have the treatment for. It’s a mysterious terminal illness that Ravi is convinced is going to kill them in a few years. It’s also a mysterious terminal illness Ravi’s poor indebted faerie boarder is convinced she can cure to get out of her agonizing debt to them – and maybe even to the whole of humanity, if she plays her hand right. And since she’s the cleverest and most powerful faerie in the universe, she always plays her hand right. …Except… that time. And that other time. Ah… right… and there was that other time… Look everyone makes mistakes and when you’ve been around for thousands of years you’re bound to have a few on your record. But this time, it’ll go perfect. For sure. It has to.
678 pages, Paperback
Published July 6, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 31, 2024
TL;DR Aphy Ray bit off way more than they could chew with their debut novel.
The Storygraph giveaway intrigued me. Sapphic(?) stuff is always my jam! That said, one thing gave me pause before I started: the page count. Many of my all-time favorite novels are over 700 pages long; however, they've earned that length--either by extensively setting up second worlds, having enough intriguing story beats that would be a shame to cut, or playing with formatting to the point that a "page" consists of only a single sentence.
From the first hundred pages, I knew that Saffron and Honey: How Should I Know You? was, to be as generous as possible, a 500-page book in desperate need of shaving down. I don't know if Aphy Ray hired an editor before publishing this, but it reads as if they didn't. It reads as if they didn't even write a second draft before publication.
We open with a 3.5 page flashback about a character completely useless to the plot who'll show up in one more flashback, reappear in 300 pages to do something wholly irrelevant, and disappear halfway through the novel without explanation--the first warning for the atrocious pacing. The narration tells us what it just showed, spells out the obvious with regards to emotions and motivations, and leads us on long thought tangents that have nothing to do with the current chapter. There were maybe 3 plot-relevant scenes in the first 100 pages, with the rest being mainly slice-of-life fluff. It takes chemistry grad student Ravi 217 pages to think of doing any testing on the tar from their cysts, even though they stole a vial literally in the first chapter. Part III boldly opens with a one-page playful sex scene that barely matches the tone of the chapters before or after, and a lot of the middle is concerned with one long sex scene after the other. Act IV has this nice, tense build-up about InThetics' fuckery--swiftly undercut by 12 pages of sexy office roleplay. At some point, I had to start skimming before I truly lost my mind.
Worse still, the book frustratingly refuses to elaborate on key plot beats. Ravi offers Danica their couch for only a week, and then scene break and hard cut to Ravi accepting the fact that Danica's been living at their place for several weeks. Felicity hires a private investigator to find dirt on Danica, a subplot introduced and resolved within a single sentence. Everything about Ravi's struggles at work and even happens off-screen, as does . Every chance Ray had to show something interesting happened, they squandered.
An aside: One single chapter opens with an epigraph from Baudelaire, which:
1. What kind of a book does Aphy Ray think they're writing?
2. Why did you wait until page 351 to first introduce the concepts of epigraphs?
3. No, really; what kind of a book do they think they're writing that justifies quoting Baudelaire?
The grammar is rough. Sometimes it emphasizes words with underlines, sometimes with italics, sometimes with capital letters, sometimes bold type, and sometimes with a combination of the above; it's an inconsistent headache. The past-tense prose jumps to present tense at random nonsensical moments. Several lines lack commas where they're obviously required ("Rav if you don't know the answer you can just say that you don't know." "Nicole people spend years studying to figure that stuff out."); I'm American, but a Canadian writer friend I consulted was similarly confused. What we do get are... many... unnecessary... ellipses... which, rather than implying trailing off or rumination, jam themselves into every syntactical orifice as a substitute for interesting conversations. --Also, Ray uses dashes like this for reasons still unclear to me. William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White are crying. You made them cry.
That's not even the worst part of the prose. There's a lot of mind reading, where Ravi seemingly knows Danica's intentions and thoughts in their POV. Sometimes, Danica gets described as "Danica" and "Nicole" from the same POV, even though Danica calls herself Danica and only Ravi calls her Nicole (for no good reason, mind you. I get why Danica likes being called Nicole, but I don't for the life of me understand why Ravi started using that name. Is it because they're an asshole who treats women like their playthings? Seems in-character for someone who dislikes gendered terms yet likes being called "guy," "man," or "sir").
It sucks, because there are nuggets of gold here. In Part II, Ravi accidentally starts a major chemical fire which clearly traumatizes them. In a later scene, they're scanning the room for flammable material and then anything that can put it out--very good showing of a stress response. The next 2.5 paragraphs waste time reminding us that Ravi's on edge and afraid of this place catching on fire. Aphy. My esteemed gentlethem. Do you think we are idiots?
Overall, between the hand-holding narration and the redundant adverbs/dialogue tags, the writing style feels... Forget YA, it's practically middle grade (and not even one of the good MGs). Like, this is not a paragraph you should find in a book written for people at an adult reading level:
Nicole and the cheerful old woman shared a hug and a warm thanks before the exchange, and the two of them talked for a bit in Spanish and laughed sincerely at each other's stories. Ravi had never picked up more than a few twisted loanwords of the language from dear Felicity's family dinners, so they couldn't really follow along, but it was clear these two had a tight connection.
The kids loved Nicole, and from the glow in her cheeks[,] she clearly had a lot of affection for them[,] too. [Commas added by me; look, I'm an editor at heart.]
A friend pointed out that this felt like published fanfiction, both in terms of style and length, and while I cannot confirm or deny anything lest I get sued for libel... It's The Owl House, isn't it?
Moving onto structural issues: Meshing sci-fi and fantasy like this is ambitious, but I'm not sure if it works for me. This isn't a soft sci-fi like Dirty Computer where the fantasy elements have a sci-fi coat of paint, or a science fantasy like Star Wars that's a high fantasy epic with spaceships and lasers; the cyberpunk dystopia full of corporate greed and a mysterious terminal illness reads like sci-fi, and the fae living in the modern world and meddling with human affairs reads like fantasy. The tones never meet in the middle.
Whenever Danica goes to the bar, she orders by color and doesn't even comment on what the drink is. Henry just mixes up an "arcane concoction of liquors and bitters and juices" (RIP liqueurs and tinctures and syrups and sodas) that seems impossible and sounds disgusting. I get that he's a fae, so he's probably doing magic, but, look: This reads less like a magical bartender adding a special flair to his drinks and more like someone who doesn't know anything about bartending trying to make it magical. This isn't Cocktail; you need to treat bartending and cocktails with respect.
The biology and medicine is... Well, liveblogging my journey to my virology PhD student BFF made her flip her shit. Infectious specimens stored in glass vials and easily stolen by patients, working with pathogenic samples under a fume hood rather than a biosafety cabinet, pipetting samples onto Petri dishes instead of slides when all they did amounted to looking at it under a microscope, checking for hydrocarbons with "various litmus tests" when all litmus paper does is check for pH... To quote her increasingly-outraged texts, "they’re treating [the tar] like it’s DH5α [safe E. coli] instead of a goddamn BSL3 [for things that will kill you and spread by air] AT LEAST, AND THEY DON’T KNOW HOW SCIENCE WORKS. AT ALL. I’m going to have a coronary." The same friend with whom I consulted on Canadian grammar is also getting her master's in biochemistry, and she independently confirmed that Ravi should be working in a biosafety cabinet, ideally under CL3 (the Canadian equivalent of BSL3); she also noted that Petri dish is supposed to be capitalized and frowned that Danica was in a lab at all wearing a dress and stockings without proper leg coverage.
And that's not even getting into the medical conspiracy nonsense (hey Aphy, what are your thoughts on Jewish people?) that the clinics are selling off patients' tar to turn a profit, to the point where they turn away healthier patients for not being as profitable, and are disinterested in finding a cure because it wouldn't make them as much money as temporary treatment. I was annoyed even before we got to the twist that .
For the record, the reason why we haven't yet cured many chronic or terminal illnesses is because we literally just found effective treatments for many within the past century, if not the past few decades--not because evil corporations are deliberately trying to make us sicker for their benefit. Being an anarchist doesn't give you carte blanche to spread fearmongering bullshit.
Also, frankly, a lot of this felt American. Aphy Ray lives in Canada and repeatedly calls themself Canadian, and yet, my Canadian friends rolled their eyes somewhat at the for-profit healthcare and companies/government manufacturing arms and using them against countries that aren't as friendly to the Canadian government. Are we implying that Canada's overtaken the USA as a global superpower? How? In what ways? What made 'murica fall off the map so hard that the Canucks overtook us in being evil about international politics? Will we ever get answers? Unlikely.
Finally, let's talk characters. Ray prides themself on their webside as writing "personality-driven stories," which is news to me, since the characterization is one of the weakest points in this book.
Ravi sucks. They treat women as disposable and find it appropriate to show their roommate sensitive photos of their fuckbuddy (while claiming that said roommate sharing about her own sex life is TMI). I love a good asshole protagonist, especially one with the right balance of positive traits and harsh life circumstances showing how they got to be such a jackass, but Ravi's no Esteban Trueba; their only redeeming quality is letting Danica crash on their couch, and their terminal illness and poverty doesn't explain enough of their misogyny and scientific illiteracy. In Part V, . For God's sake, I read sapphic lit to embrace women and lesbian-aligned nb people in all their complexity, not see them reduced to playthings.
Danica's debt to Ravi and desire to help them could be interesting; unfortunately, for someone who the narration tells us is oh-so kind and charitable, she also sucks. In her dealings with a fellow fae, she notes that she has to be careful--and then immediately calls her a "grumpy old hag." The way she treats Henry just sickens me; no amount of "this fae is an unhelpful trickster" justifies the verbal abuse she slings his way, from constant insults to screaming at him. Especially considering their dynamic takes the form of a customer-bartender one, it makes me want to strangle her. I also want to strangle her for her fear around InThetics prosthetics, and while there's an in-universe justification vis-a-vis , the fact that the book never mentions other prosthetics just makes this feel icky, though I'll let actual prostheses users comment on that.
Felicity's just awful. For a "personality-driven" book, her only real personality traits are "old books!" and "annoying to Ravi" and "bitchy to Danica." There's a weak explanation of her being unsatisfied with her life, but it's exaggerated to the point of farce; she acts more like a bully in a MG novel than a complex woman taking out her pain on others.
Doesn't help that all three of them have the emotional maturity of the middle-grade TV show characters they're [allegedly] based off, and so many problems could be fixed if they'd just had normal adult conversations or DTRed. Together, the three read like all the annoying leftists that make me hate being a leftist.
Speaking of annoying leftists, we have to talk about the handling of race.
The author, as far as I can tell, is white. Regardless, they made the bold and frankly dangerous choice to make two POVs (Ravi and Felicity) people of color. I'm also white, but in conversations with friends of color, we came to the conclusion that Ray was in way over their head and actively crossing the line. I'm not saying that white people can't write protagonists of color; I'm saying that Aphy Ray can't.
In the first part, we know that Ravi is South Asian because they tongue-in-cheek call themselves a "fucking antifa p*ki [censorship mine] terrorist dyke," they mention having brown skin, they named themselves after a sun god from their mom's side of the family, and they mention the difficulties of being a brown-skinned punk (in fact, the prose contains some variant of "brown skin" or brown person" six times, but not one mention of Ravi's ethnic origins). Aside from a few scenes that mention Achaar and one with curry, there's nothing else. It reads like diversity for diversity's sake, rather than genuine care and respect for a culture and its people. Presumably they're Hindu (as Ravi is a Hindu god, and, let's be real, when was the last time a white person wrote a Sikh, Jain, Muslim, Christian, or Jewish South Asian protagonist?)--but though the timeline covers an entire year from fall to fall, Ravi never mentions Diwali or Holi, even in a bittersweet tone of missing the festivities.
(Sidenote: In chapter 1, Ravi worries that the woman pretending to be their mom is too conspicuous since she doesn't have "brown skin," even though they themselves are mixed-race with a presumably white father. Oh, this book 100% never saw a second draft, let alone an editor.)
Felicity is allegedly Filipino, but it pretty much never comes up except as a few asides when Danica calls her Filipina and later when Ravi calls them both "brown kids" (again??), one mention of her family speaking Spanish (apparently uncommon; most Filipino people I've known spoke Tagalog), and constant references to her lola. Aphy Ray apparently does not feel comfortable going beyond that.
You know what they do feel comfortable writing, though? Racism. Aside from "p*** [censorship mine] terrorist dyke," there's a bit on page 190 where Felicity, suggesting the danger she faces walking alone late at night, refers to herself as a "svelte little Filipina princess."
...Jesus Christ.
I just don't understand how you can be too chickenshit to do basic research on someone's culture, yet gleefully throw around racial insults and slurs like it's no problem. And no, it doesn't become okay when the character of color says it. It only makes it clearer that you refuse to engage with nonwhite cultures while pretending to take their struggles seriously.
To be blunt, I don't think Ray is a good enough author yet to attempt all that they're trying to do. They're not yet good enough to smash together two disparate genres; they're not yet good enough to write a series of doorstoppers; they're not yet good enough to write characters of color, let alone protagonists; they're not yet good enough to write fiction for adults. I wish them all the best with their sequel--but more than that, I wish them a professional editor, several sensitivity readers, and more focus on short works rather than trying to crank out a novel a year.
If you made it this far and you're still curious, I beg you, read literally anything else. Your bank statements. The drug facts for a bottle of mouthwash. Assembly instructions for an IKEA RAST. I guarantee, they'll have seen more revisions than this underbaked novel.
January 18, 2025
Too long to get into. It's a great message about the journey of the main character finding themselves, but it's lacking in terms of fantasy. There was too much attention to the context and issues of real life and the complexities of human behaviour over the qualities and uniqueness of the Fantasy aspects. I wish there was more of the fairies and witches over the real world issues. Not what I was expecting.
January 6, 2025
Saffron and Honey is a walking identity crisis with a writing style comparable to middle-grade books, and that’s an insult to middle-grade books. This book is about 200 pages too long, with plot-specific events happening WAY too infrequently. Even from the first two chapters, I could tell the author thinks they’re so quirky and clever when, really, they’ve spent too much time on Tumblr (also guilty as charged, but this review isn’t about me). Ray coined their book to be “romantascifi," an interesting choice for a debut novel. Skillfully integrating three genres into one story is challenging and something most authors don’t do, so I don't know where they got the chutzpah to it. It's not hard to figure out why from reading this book. The first three chapters all feel like different genres (contemporary romance, fantasy, and then sci-fi) rather than combining them all cohesively into one story. I was stupid, and did not realize this foreshadowed how awful this would be for the rest of the book. Second, romantasy is a genre that does not put out good books, and shoving sci-fi in there reads as sloppy, insufferable, and shows a lack of planning on Ray’s part.
I wish I could tell you more about the plot, but I can't say much, considering how incoherent it is. So many plot elements get dropped on us in the first few chapters and then completely forgotten for 200+ (sometimes 300+) pages. It takes until almost up to part 2 for the plot to start plotting again. Even then, it’s sparse up until maybe the last 150 pages. When you promise me a sci-fi fantasy story, I don’t want chapters upon chapters of slice-of-life waffling about and the author inserting their barely disguised political views just to show They and the Characters are Totally Progressive!!!! (seriously, that abortion clinic scene was dumb and shoehorned in there) (I share the same political views, but I’m not above criticizing my people. I know when I’m being pandered to). It feels like Ray forgot about certain key plot points and side characters midway through writing their novel, which leads to a disjointed and inconsistent pace. It isn’t until about page 460 There was way too much downtime in a book that promised so much more.
To follow up on this, worldbuilding falls flat in so many areas. The problem with this book is that there ARE plenty of interesting ideas…if they were all in separate books where each one could breathe and be developed. I, too, understand the fun of combining every cool thing you can think of into one book. Still, one of the first things you are taught as a writer is to kill your darlings, and Ray clearly never learned how to take them out back to the shed and put them down. I’m not going to get into the sci-fi part (my girlfriend’s review already took care of that; go scroll down a bit), but I AM going to talk about fantasy worldbuilding because I, too, am a fantasy writer. The thing about the fae that struck me appx. 240 pages into the novel, is that I barely know how they work! Even by the end, I barely know how far shit works!!! Take this example:
So Danica did a little map work, based on the train Ravi was riding the previous night and the location of the last two intact faerie doors – and the fact that transient mushrooms and moss don’t grow super well in January and rocks are all hidden buried under the snow – to pick out a little search radius to track down her dear little brother so she could strangle the reason why he was trying to curse Ravi out of him.
Dashing with her Tether roof-to-roof when no one was looking, and peering over the edge to the streets below, she managed to track him down – exactly as Ravi described, in a beautiful purple three-piece suit with trendy hair with an utterly inhuman grin and hands – peering through the window of a high-end electronics store with a hungry look in his eyes.
What map work??? Does it involve magic?? Spells??? Does dashing with her tether involve moving like spider man? Or is she just launching and jumping across the buildings?? We spent 7 paragraphs in the beginning on Ravi’s fuckass jacket, and we can’t get ANYTHING on how the magic works? It’s still unclear whether Danica’s weird persuasion powers are her doing magic, a fae’s natural talent, or her rolling a nat 20 on charisma every single time. The sci-fi stuff faces a similar problem, but even worse. It’s clear that Ray favored the fae elements earlier in the novel and didn’t really give a rats ass about InThetics. Mainly because it feels so shoved in. I never felt like InThetics was a natural integration into the world like other sci-fi stories about oppressive companies or other cyberpunk narratives. We got one clumsily placed advertisement in chapter 3 or so, and then it mostly dropped off the face of the earth. If Ray wanted it to be an all-encompassing, powerful cooperation, they failed at executing the idea. I have a feeling Ray plotted out their big twist ending early on but spent so much time on the fae and contemporary romance stuff that they forgot they had to include that until 200 pages before the end of the book. It’s not a good look.
So many plot elements get taken care of off-screen, including but not limited to Ravi buying a cursed knife, Felicity hiring a PI to investigate Danica, Ravi making friends at their new InThetics job, etc., etc. Those are the interesting bits! Not paragraphs upon paragraphs of these characters waffling about and talking about how sad their lives are because [INSERT DUMBFUCK REASON THAT COULD HAVE BEEN SOLVED IN ONE CONVERSATION HERE]. If you’re going to promise me an intriguing plot, I want the focus to be on the cool stuff! Ray, next time, just write a contemporary romance,
The writing is…well! It’s writing! Sometimes, you have bits that feel like the author generally knows what they’re doing regarding the craft. Other times, someone says that a banana is soft and spiky through a metaphor. Unless the author has a banana intolerance like me, I don’t think bananas can be spiky. A lot of the descriptors and prose is genuinely not good. For example, this little fragment:
She was halfway through making a little flip-animation on a pad of sticky notes she found on Virgil’s desk when he finally made his appearance.
He entered the room mournfully apologizing.
He entered the room mournfully apologizing with a hell of a lump on his face and a black eye.
There are also moments where Ray assumes the audience are stupid idiots who just left grade school yesterday, like when they quite literally explained what marriage is
It was InThetics’ policy that only married couples – couples bound by hefty contracts of law – could be trusted to sign the non-disclosure agreements required to live in the company apartments.
It's not like I, a 24-year-old who planned her own aunt's wedding and signed the witness forms, had no idea what that was. Of course not! I totally needed that theysplained to me by this novel! Quality work. I will also mention that “An hour later, By the way,” has been incorporated into my and my friend’s lexicons for the foreseeable future.
While Ray may not be allergic to bananas, they are allergic to showing anything interesting at all. The narration often skips over conversations that would develop more character than we’re given. The inflated page count could have been reduced if Aphy took out the many “dear”’s and “oh so”’s and other fluff words. Again, it’s evident to anyone who takes more than 5 seconds to think about this book that there was no editor involved, and if there was, Ray needed to get a refund for their services yesterday.
Dialogue can range from feeling ripped straight from troom-troom to some actual decent bits about the human condition. That’s all I’m going to say about that.
I won't go too in-depth about the sex scenes. They are over-descriptive to the nth degree. I don’t think I ever need to see someone’s vagina referred to as “hot, rosy, dew-dripping petals.” I know I said some of the prose was good before. None of that applies to the sex scenes. And really? A 12-page office role-play scene? At least the other sex scenes offered more in terms of character, but this was not only gratuitous but re-established what we know with too much anal.
Ravi needs a good punch in the face. They suck, genuinely, even though Ray clearly wants us to think their fatal flaw is being “too selfless.” Back in reality, they are a mean-spirited jackass who isn't above screaming at people to get their way. I’d be cool with an asshole protagonist if they were treated like one, but it’s clear that Ray sees them as very loveable but slightly flawed. And besides, their main “flaw” is them being “too selfless”. Sure, if you look at the plot, they are. Still, throughout the novel, they’re constantly off-putting, push people away, rude, inconsiderate, and self-pitying to the point where I was cheering for them to jump into the river and end the book early. It’s eye-roll-inducing and not entertaining at all. Not to mention, they’re incredibly stupid for a supposed scientist, as it takes them over 600 pages to realize that Nicole is, in fact, a fae! They also treat Felicity like shit the entire time. They never apologize, along with just assuming she’d be transphobic against them when she’s never shown any signs of that (also, I wholeheartedly believe the reason they didn’t tell Felicity was drama for drama's sake. It’s lame and I expected better from a nonbinary author). But that’s not even the worst bit.
(Also, I find it funny how they demanded that she know them, but she doesn’t even bother to learn her name. For a character who’s supposed “gender neutral,” they do a lot of misogyny I’d expect from a man! And they also sure like being referred to with male titles like sir even though at the novel's beginning, they only liked gender-neutral terms! I'm all for nonbinary characters because we need more, but Ravi consistently felt like they were supposed to be written as a trans man)
((bouncing off of this but I find it really interesting that all of the characters who like men or are men (minus that one guy in Ravi's flashback and Nicole's dead dad) are supposed to be our "good guys" who we want to root for, and all of our lesbians (Felicity, that one singer that flirted with Nicole, and "What's-her-name") are antagonists or obstacles. I gotta say, managing to do misogyny in your sapphic book takes skill.))
Nicole is going to be a long section, but her character is both the least and the most interesting thing about her. She needed to be a villain—or, at the very least, an antihero. She’s super cool! I think the concept of her is interesting, but honestly, she veers a little bit into Mary Sue Too Perfect territory. Reign her in a bit; I think you have something good here!
I will combine these two flaws into one paragraph, but I want to start with the whole Danica/Nicole thing. I already knew that names would be a big part of the story going into this book since fae would be involved. And I predicted where the whole thing with Danica also being Nicole would go. I get it; there’s some trans allegories in there, but how it starts feels like such a missed opportunity. Ravi gives Danica the name Nicole for…seemingly no reason. Just because she “looks like a Nicole.” Not only does this make Ravi seem misogynistic (they also do this with the TA they’ve been hooking up with, who they don’t respect), but there could have been an opportunity to expand on their backstory. What if they knew a Nicole and saw her in Danica? What if they hated a Nicole and wanted a more positive association with that name? What if Nicole was a part of their dead name?? This leads me to my next point: the correlation between fae and their names/body constructs and trans people. The metaphor is right there, and yet it’s barely if at all, explored. It’s right there!!
I commend Ray for writing a plus-sized woman as a love interest and having her body be seen as sexually desirable. Even in an era of body positivity, they’re still considered a rarity. However, as someone who’s not at all skinny but still isn’t considered “plus size,” the way Ray puts a massive focus on Danica’s body crosses the line from appreciation to fetishization. Her appearance is constantly brought up even when it's barely relevant, and she’s consistently reduced to being big and curvy from both Ravi and Felicity's POV. The phrase “forbidden ample curves” was used unironically to describe her, and I had to stop reading for a moment to dry heave and bitch to my girlfriend. This, combined with all the ways Danica was compared to a snack or meal, felt like, pardon the pun, in poor taste. I don't think Ray had or has any harmful intentions. They just didn’t edit their novel nor realized how much this problem persisted.
Quick aside to talk about the title. Saffron and Honey is certainly interesting and unique. We know why Honey is there, because...Nicole's vagina tastes like honey. Okay, disgusting but fair. So why is Saffron there? It would have to represent Ravi, right? And Ravi doesn't even work at Inthetics until 2/3rds of the way through the book, nor do they work on any of the saffron technology. Hell, they don't even HAVE any prosthetics. I didn't even want to go here initially but...is Ravi "Saffron" in the title because they're Indian??????? Because...there's a nasty implication here and I really don't like it. Representing your lead of color and your plus sized love interest through food is really not a good look. I'd love to know a more charitable interpretation but as it stands...this isn't a good look.
Felicity was absolutely robbed, and she should have been the main character. There, I said it. So controversial. You give me an annoying but still loveable girl up against the world's first nonbinary incel and Rose Quartz We Have At Home…of course, I’m going to root for her. She gets constantly shit on by the narration, Ravi (as much as they nor Ray don’t want to admit it, they are a TERRIBLE friend), and Danica. She is the novel’s punching bag. And I didn’t want to bring this up, but isn't it strange how the only named lesbian in this SAPPHIC novel is weird about nonbinary people and all the bisexual characters are cool with them? Combined with a bizarre comment Ravi made about dominating “big and strong” butch lesbians, as well as what I mentioned previously, I have to raise my eyebrow a little bit. Like Felicity, my best friend is trans and changed his name after a decade of me knowing him. I was a little sad about it but moved on with my life, because I love this man dearly and he's been in my life for over a decade. Not to mention I’m a butch lesbian in a relationship with a nonbinary butch lesbian, so I think I have the right to be a little miffed about this.
Side characters? They’re props to push the main characters towards other actions. Hell, some of them, like Ravi’s hookup and the singer Danica flirts with that one time, don’t even get names (and it’s usually the women characters. Curious!). They barely have personalities, and really, they don’t matter to the story. Even Carrie, one of the more fleshed-out side characters, isn't spared from this lack of care. She first mentions having a boyfriend, and 300 pages or so later, she asks Ravi if another man is single. Either she got dumped off page, or Ray forgot entirely. Neither of these aspects are good. Even Angie, who I thought would play a more antagonistic role, drops off the face of the book for dozens of pages before Ray remembers to make her show up again. For a book called Saffron and Honey, how should I know you? We don’t get to know many of the side characters.
Looking back, much of my anger from this review comes from the lost potential. I’m all here for interesting queer stories that have cool plots. This should have been a smash hit for me. And yet every page, I kept pointing out aspects that would be great if Ray just did this or took that out. The game felt exhausting after page…I’ve honestly forgotten at this point. It’s disappointing. Not only reading something you know can be good, but also having your identity be subtly shat on and disrespected, having your body type feel fetishized, and the genre you love squandered.
I've been extremely mean this entire review. I want to end on something...somewhat kind. So, Aphy, if you're still stalking the reviews, please take this to heart. There are genuinely good bits in this book. I think your quest to explore the human condition and all the selfish and mean little bits we have is admirable. Lean into it more! Some of your prose is excellent, and you should lean into the descriptive stuff (but only during some moments). With all that being said, you need to get an editor. You need to be told no for once in your writing. You need sensitivity readers. And above all, you need to get a fucking grip. I won't write you off and say there's no hope for you as an author. Debut novels are tricky beasts. But I believe you could get trad pubbed someday! Saffron and Honey is a highly ambitious doorstopper that COULD have been good in the right hands, but it's not yours.
I wish I could tell you more about the plot, but I can't say much, considering how incoherent it is. So many plot elements get dropped on us in the first few chapters and then completely forgotten for 200+ (sometimes 300+) pages. It takes until almost up to part 2 for the plot to start plotting again. Even then, it’s sparse up until maybe the last 150 pages. When you promise me a sci-fi fantasy story, I don’t want chapters upon chapters of slice-of-life waffling about and the author inserting their barely disguised political views just to show They and the Characters are Totally Progressive!!!! (seriously, that abortion clinic scene was dumb and shoehorned in there) (I share the same political views, but I’m not above criticizing my people. I know when I’m being pandered to). It feels like Ray forgot about certain key plot points and side characters midway through writing their novel, which leads to a disjointed and inconsistent pace. It isn’t until about page 460 There was way too much downtime in a book that promised so much more.
To follow up on this, worldbuilding falls flat in so many areas. The problem with this book is that there ARE plenty of interesting ideas…if they were all in separate books where each one could breathe and be developed. I, too, understand the fun of combining every cool thing you can think of into one book. Still, one of the first things you are taught as a writer is to kill your darlings, and Ray clearly never learned how to take them out back to the shed and put them down. I’m not going to get into the sci-fi part (my girlfriend’s review already took care of that; go scroll down a bit), but I AM going to talk about fantasy worldbuilding because I, too, am a fantasy writer. The thing about the fae that struck me appx. 240 pages into the novel, is that I barely know how they work! Even by the end, I barely know how far shit works!!! Take this example:
So Danica did a little map work, based on the train Ravi was riding the previous night and the location of the last two intact faerie doors – and the fact that transient mushrooms and moss don’t grow super well in January and rocks are all hidden buried under the snow – to pick out a little search radius to track down her dear little brother so she could strangle the reason why he was trying to curse Ravi out of him.
Dashing with her Tether roof-to-roof when no one was looking, and peering over the edge to the streets below, she managed to track him down – exactly as Ravi described, in a beautiful purple three-piece suit with trendy hair with an utterly inhuman grin and hands – peering through the window of a high-end electronics store with a hungry look in his eyes.
What map work??? Does it involve magic?? Spells??? Does dashing with her tether involve moving like spider man? Or is she just launching and jumping across the buildings?? We spent 7 paragraphs in the beginning on Ravi’s fuckass jacket, and we can’t get ANYTHING on how the magic works? It’s still unclear whether Danica’s weird persuasion powers are her doing magic, a fae’s natural talent, or her rolling a nat 20 on charisma every single time. The sci-fi stuff faces a similar problem, but even worse. It’s clear that Ray favored the fae elements earlier in the novel and didn’t really give a rats ass about InThetics. Mainly because it feels so shoved in. I never felt like InThetics was a natural integration into the world like other sci-fi stories about oppressive companies or other cyberpunk narratives. We got one clumsily placed advertisement in chapter 3 or so, and then it mostly dropped off the face of the earth. If Ray wanted it to be an all-encompassing, powerful cooperation, they failed at executing the idea. I have a feeling Ray plotted out their big twist ending early on but spent so much time on the fae and contemporary romance stuff that they forgot they had to include that until 200 pages before the end of the book. It’s not a good look.
So many plot elements get taken care of off-screen, including but not limited to Ravi buying a cursed knife, Felicity hiring a PI to investigate Danica, Ravi making friends at their new InThetics job, etc., etc. Those are the interesting bits! Not paragraphs upon paragraphs of these characters waffling about and talking about how sad their lives are because [INSERT DUMBFUCK REASON THAT COULD HAVE BEEN SOLVED IN ONE CONVERSATION HERE]. If you’re going to promise me an intriguing plot, I want the focus to be on the cool stuff! Ray, next time, just write a contemporary romance,
The writing is…well! It’s writing! Sometimes, you have bits that feel like the author generally knows what they’re doing regarding the craft. Other times, someone says that a banana is soft and spiky through a metaphor. Unless the author has a banana intolerance like me, I don’t think bananas can be spiky. A lot of the descriptors and prose is genuinely not good. For example, this little fragment:
She was halfway through making a little flip-animation on a pad of sticky notes she found on Virgil’s desk when he finally made his appearance.
He entered the room mournfully apologizing.
He entered the room mournfully apologizing with a hell of a lump on his face and a black eye.
There are also moments where Ray assumes the audience are stupid idiots who just left grade school yesterday, like when they quite literally explained what marriage is
It was InThetics’ policy that only married couples – couples bound by hefty contracts of law – could be trusted to sign the non-disclosure agreements required to live in the company apartments.
It's not like I, a 24-year-old who planned her own aunt's wedding and signed the witness forms, had no idea what that was. Of course not! I totally needed that theysplained to me by this novel! Quality work. I will also mention that “An hour later, By the way,” has been incorporated into my and my friend’s lexicons for the foreseeable future.
While Ray may not be allergic to bananas, they are allergic to showing anything interesting at all. The narration often skips over conversations that would develop more character than we’re given. The inflated page count could have been reduced if Aphy took out the many “dear”’s and “oh so”’s and other fluff words. Again, it’s evident to anyone who takes more than 5 seconds to think about this book that there was no editor involved, and if there was, Ray needed to get a refund for their services yesterday.
Dialogue can range from feeling ripped straight from troom-troom to some actual decent bits about the human condition. That’s all I’m going to say about that.
I won't go too in-depth about the sex scenes. They are over-descriptive to the nth degree. I don’t think I ever need to see someone’s vagina referred to as “hot, rosy, dew-dripping petals.” I know I said some of the prose was good before. None of that applies to the sex scenes. And really? A 12-page office role-play scene? At least the other sex scenes offered more in terms of character, but this was not only gratuitous but re-established what we know with too much anal.
Ravi needs a good punch in the face. They suck, genuinely, even though Ray clearly wants us to think their fatal flaw is being “too selfless.” Back in reality, they are a mean-spirited jackass who isn't above screaming at people to get their way. I’d be cool with an asshole protagonist if they were treated like one, but it’s clear that Ray sees them as very loveable but slightly flawed. And besides, their main “flaw” is them being “too selfless”. Sure, if you look at the plot, they are. Still, throughout the novel, they’re constantly off-putting, push people away, rude, inconsiderate, and self-pitying to the point where I was cheering for them to jump into the river and end the book early. It’s eye-roll-inducing and not entertaining at all. Not to mention, they’re incredibly stupid for a supposed scientist, as it takes them over 600 pages to realize that Nicole is, in fact, a fae! They also treat Felicity like shit the entire time. They never apologize, along with just assuming she’d be transphobic against them when she’s never shown any signs of that (also, I wholeheartedly believe the reason they didn’t tell Felicity was drama for drama's sake. It’s lame and I expected better from a nonbinary author). But that’s not even the worst bit.
(Also, I find it funny how they demanded that she know them, but she doesn’t even bother to learn her name. For a character who’s supposed “gender neutral,” they do a lot of misogyny I’d expect from a man! And they also sure like being referred to with male titles like sir even though at the novel's beginning, they only liked gender-neutral terms! I'm all for nonbinary characters because we need more, but Ravi consistently felt like they were supposed to be written as a trans man)
((bouncing off of this but I find it really interesting that all of the characters who like men or are men (minus that one guy in Ravi's flashback and Nicole's dead dad) are supposed to be our "good guys" who we want to root for, and all of our lesbians (Felicity, that one singer that flirted with Nicole, and "What's-her-name") are antagonists or obstacles. I gotta say, managing to do misogyny in your sapphic book takes skill.))
Nicole is going to be a long section, but her character is both the least and the most interesting thing about her. She needed to be a villain—or, at the very least, an antihero. She’s super cool! I think the concept of her is interesting, but honestly, she veers a little bit into Mary Sue Too Perfect territory. Reign her in a bit; I think you have something good here!
I will combine these two flaws into one paragraph, but I want to start with the whole Danica/Nicole thing. I already knew that names would be a big part of the story going into this book since fae would be involved. And I predicted where the whole thing with Danica also being Nicole would go. I get it; there’s some trans allegories in there, but how it starts feels like such a missed opportunity. Ravi gives Danica the name Nicole for…seemingly no reason. Just because she “looks like a Nicole.” Not only does this make Ravi seem misogynistic (they also do this with the TA they’ve been hooking up with, who they don’t respect), but there could have been an opportunity to expand on their backstory. What if they knew a Nicole and saw her in Danica? What if they hated a Nicole and wanted a more positive association with that name? What if Nicole was a part of their dead name?? This leads me to my next point: the correlation between fae and their names/body constructs and trans people. The metaphor is right there, and yet it’s barely if at all, explored. It’s right there!!
I commend Ray for writing a plus-sized woman as a love interest and having her body be seen as sexually desirable. Even in an era of body positivity, they’re still considered a rarity. However, as someone who’s not at all skinny but still isn’t considered “plus size,” the way Ray puts a massive focus on Danica’s body crosses the line from appreciation to fetishization. Her appearance is constantly brought up even when it's barely relevant, and she’s consistently reduced to being big and curvy from both Ravi and Felicity's POV. The phrase “forbidden ample curves” was used unironically to describe her, and I had to stop reading for a moment to dry heave and bitch to my girlfriend. This, combined with all the ways Danica was compared to a snack or meal, felt like, pardon the pun, in poor taste. I don't think Ray had or has any harmful intentions. They just didn’t edit their novel nor realized how much this problem persisted.
Quick aside to talk about the title. Saffron and Honey is certainly interesting and unique. We know why Honey is there, because...Nicole's vagina tastes like honey. Okay, disgusting but fair. So why is Saffron there? It would have to represent Ravi, right? And Ravi doesn't even work at Inthetics until 2/3rds of the way through the book, nor do they work on any of the saffron technology. Hell, they don't even HAVE any prosthetics. I didn't even want to go here initially but...is Ravi "Saffron" in the title because they're Indian??????? Because...there's a nasty implication here and I really don't like it. Representing your lead of color and your plus sized love interest through food is really not a good look. I'd love to know a more charitable interpretation but as it stands...this isn't a good look.
Felicity was absolutely robbed, and she should have been the main character. There, I said it. So controversial. You give me an annoying but still loveable girl up against the world's first nonbinary incel and Rose Quartz We Have At Home…of course, I’m going to root for her. She gets constantly shit on by the narration, Ravi (as much as they nor Ray don’t want to admit it, they are a TERRIBLE friend), and Danica. She is the novel’s punching bag. And I didn’t want to bring this up, but isn't it strange how the only named lesbian in this SAPPHIC novel is weird about nonbinary people and all the bisexual characters are cool with them? Combined with a bizarre comment Ravi made about dominating “big and strong” butch lesbians, as well as what I mentioned previously, I have to raise my eyebrow a little bit. Like Felicity, my best friend is trans and changed his name after a decade of me knowing him. I was a little sad about it but moved on with my life, because I love this man dearly and he's been in my life for over a decade. Not to mention I’m a butch lesbian in a relationship with a nonbinary butch lesbian, so I think I have the right to be a little miffed about this.
Side characters? They’re props to push the main characters towards other actions. Hell, some of them, like Ravi’s hookup and the singer Danica flirts with that one time, don’t even get names (and it’s usually the women characters. Curious!). They barely have personalities, and really, they don’t matter to the story. Even Carrie, one of the more fleshed-out side characters, isn't spared from this lack of care. She first mentions having a boyfriend, and 300 pages or so later, she asks Ravi if another man is single. Either she got dumped off page, or Ray forgot entirely. Neither of these aspects are good. Even Angie, who I thought would play a more antagonistic role, drops off the face of the book for dozens of pages before Ray remembers to make her show up again. For a book called Saffron and Honey, how should I know you? We don’t get to know many of the side characters.
Looking back, much of my anger from this review comes from the lost potential. I’m all here for interesting queer stories that have cool plots. This should have been a smash hit for me. And yet every page, I kept pointing out aspects that would be great if Ray just did this or took that out. The game felt exhausting after page…I’ve honestly forgotten at this point. It’s disappointing. Not only reading something you know can be good, but also having your identity be subtly shat on and disrespected, having your body type feel fetishized, and the genre you love squandered.
I've been extremely mean this entire review. I want to end on something...somewhat kind. So, Aphy, if you're still stalking the reviews, please take this to heart. There are genuinely good bits in this book. I think your quest to explore the human condition and all the selfish and mean little bits we have is admirable. Lean into it more! Some of your prose is excellent, and you should lean into the descriptive stuff (but only during some moments). With all that being said, you need to get an editor. You need to be told no for once in your writing. You need sensitivity readers. And above all, you need to get a fucking grip. I won't write you off and say there's no hope for you as an author. Debut novels are tricky beasts. But I believe you could get trad pubbed someday! Saffron and Honey is a highly ambitious doorstopper that COULD have been good in the right hands, but it's not yours.
October 12, 2025
Halfway through, I thought this book could work if it were about half as long, but by the end, I wasn't sure of even that.
To start -- the pacing. The plot progressed at a snail's pace. Every time it approached an interesting development or idea, it meandered away to forget about it for a couple hundred pages (or sometimes forever). It never felt like a natural breather, always an awkward drop off. The character interactions were repetitive in a way that made the characters feel increasingly shallow. In a tightly paced book, I can feel like I'm getting the key points of characterization and relationships, but still read into things that are only implied and assume that there's more behind the scenes. It keeps the illusion that characters are complete, real people. But in this book, where there were all these languorous stretches only sparsely interspersed with plot and the characters still only reiterated the same thoughts, feelings, and dynamics, it felt like there must be nothing else about them to express. Since I also disliked all the main characters, as their characterization was doubled down on rather than changing or showing new facets, I went from a bit annoyed, but empathetic and open to seeing how their behavior might benefit the story or themes, to entirely sick of them by the end of the book.
I was left with the sense that the author didn't know how shitty these characters came across. Like the intent might have been that they were complicated or quirky, but they weren’t deep, and they weren’t fun; they were just shallow, hypocritical, and unpleasant. Ravi was constantly judgmental about things that they themself also did. It starts from early on when they were hooking up with someone that they very much did not like, tuned out in conversation, and whose name they wouldn’t even remember, all the while disdaining this person for wanting casual sex with them rather than a deeper connection. It takes two, my guy, let's have some self-awareness (And at this point I really thought they would get some; it was not to be). They were also dismissive of Felicity and her passion from the very first scene with her, despite her (supposedly) being the “best friend Ravi was ever going to get” (which was also a wild thing to state as fact for reasons that have as much to do with Felicity as Ravi) and stated value Ravi apparently holds for people with passion and convictions. Later, I would lose all sympathy for Felicity, but in the early parts of the book, there was no reason for Ravi and Danica to act like they were just managing her until they could finally escape, giving each other exasperated glances and praising themselves for putting up with her behind her back. Ravi, especially, but Danica as well, despite her stated motivations, didn’t seem to actually give a shit about other people and held a lot of double standards that gave themselves much more grace than anyone else. It was infuriating to see this glossed over.
Felicity had her own problems, namely that after her first scene or two, she had one character trait taken to the extreme and nothing else – she was “protective” of Ravi, which really meant she hated Danica to a cartoonish degree. Her arguments with the couple and terrible communication with Ravi were as repetitive as anything else. She was mostly antagonistic in a way that didn't make sense with her goals, and she never got any friendship moments with Ravi, toxic or otherwise.
Moving away from the characters, the fantasy elements piqued my interest. I certainly had hopes for the cruel, nameless gods and the way the fae were intermediaries that could end up just as trapped in their own deals as humans at the whims of said gods. Each time a faerie contract came into play or faerie meddling was implied , I was looking for ways it might be twisted or hidden loopholes in the language might appear. One of the main things I was on alert for was the use of names. True names were of major importance to fae, in typical fashion, and every contract had to be signed with a true name. Given that Ravi was nonbinary and still legally going by and known to Felicity by their deadname, but also had a chosen name, and that Danica/Nicole started to identify more with the name Ravi gave them, I thought the chosen v. assigned identities and misunderstanding about people's identities were going to be key to some of these deals. They never were. Danica even said (before she’d started thinking of herself as Nicole) that the contract she made with Ravi didn’t count because she signed it as Nicole (in the end, though, that isn’t the reason she used to get out of it). She also talked about how important it was that all words in a contract were defined properly and used precisely if trying to avoid getting them twisted back on her. So when I realized that the contract with was referring to Ravi by their deadname, I was convinced that was the trick Danica was playing or the loophole that would recontextualize everything about . Instead, it was played straight, meaning, I guess, that the gods considered that dead name to be an acceptable and accurate identifier of who Ravi was even after they redefined themself. Maybe this will become relevant in a later book in the series, but it really feels past due for that trigger to be pulled, given the length of the book. If it is being saved, then I don’t think involving all these contracts that straight up ignore the issue was a good idea. I don’t know how it could not even be a consideration in these instances if it’s going to be in play at all. Overall, I was let down by the lack of cleverness or subtlety in using the rules of the fae – the contracts, the names, the inability to lie – given how it was talked up.
To start -- the pacing. The plot progressed at a snail's pace. Every time it approached an interesting development or idea, it meandered away to forget about it for a couple hundred pages (or sometimes forever). It never felt like a natural breather, always an awkward drop off. The character interactions were repetitive in a way that made the characters feel increasingly shallow. In a tightly paced book, I can feel like I'm getting the key points of characterization and relationships, but still read into things that are only implied and assume that there's more behind the scenes. It keeps the illusion that characters are complete, real people. But in this book, where there were all these languorous stretches only sparsely interspersed with plot and the characters still only reiterated the same thoughts, feelings, and dynamics, it felt like there must be nothing else about them to express. Since I also disliked all the main characters, as their characterization was doubled down on rather than changing or showing new facets, I went from a bit annoyed, but empathetic and open to seeing how their behavior might benefit the story or themes, to entirely sick of them by the end of the book.
I was left with the sense that the author didn't know how shitty these characters came across. Like the intent might have been that they were complicated or quirky, but they weren’t deep, and they weren’t fun; they were just shallow, hypocritical, and unpleasant. Ravi was constantly judgmental about things that they themself also did. It starts from early on when they were hooking up with someone that they very much did not like, tuned out in conversation, and whose name they wouldn’t even remember, all the while disdaining this person for wanting casual sex with them rather than a deeper connection. It takes two, my guy, let's have some self-awareness (And at this point I really thought they would get some; it was not to be). They were also dismissive of Felicity and her passion from the very first scene with her, despite her (supposedly) being the “best friend Ravi was ever going to get” (which was also a wild thing to state as fact for reasons that have as much to do with Felicity as Ravi) and stated value Ravi apparently holds for people with passion and convictions. Later, I would lose all sympathy for Felicity, but in the early parts of the book, there was no reason for Ravi and Danica to act like they were just managing her until they could finally escape, giving each other exasperated glances and praising themselves for putting up with her behind her back. Ravi, especially, but Danica as well, despite her stated motivations, didn’t seem to actually give a shit about other people and held a lot of double standards that gave themselves much more grace than anyone else. It was infuriating to see this glossed over.
Felicity had her own problems, namely that after her first scene or two, she had one character trait taken to the extreme and nothing else – she was “protective” of Ravi, which really meant she hated Danica to a cartoonish degree. Her arguments with the couple and terrible communication with Ravi were as repetitive as anything else. She was mostly antagonistic in a way that didn't make sense with her goals, and she never got any friendship moments with Ravi, toxic or otherwise.
Moving away from the characters, the fantasy elements piqued my interest. I certainly had hopes for the cruel, nameless gods and the way the fae were intermediaries that could end up just as trapped in their own deals as humans at the whims of said gods. Each time a faerie contract came into play or faerie meddling was implied , I was looking for ways it might be twisted or hidden loopholes in the language might appear. One of the main things I was on alert for was the use of names. True names were of major importance to fae, in typical fashion, and every contract had to be signed with a true name. Given that Ravi was nonbinary and still legally going by and known to Felicity by their deadname, but also had a chosen name, and that Danica/Nicole started to identify more with the name Ravi gave them, I thought the chosen v. assigned identities and misunderstanding about people's identities were going to be key to some of these deals. They never were. Danica even said (before she’d started thinking of herself as Nicole) that the contract she made with Ravi didn’t count because she signed it as Nicole (in the end, though, that isn’t the reason she used to get out of it). She also talked about how important it was that all words in a contract were defined properly and used precisely if trying to avoid getting them twisted back on her. So when I realized that the contract with was referring to Ravi by their deadname, I was convinced that was the trick Danica was playing or the loophole that would recontextualize everything about . Instead, it was played straight, meaning, I guess, that the gods considered that dead name to be an acceptable and accurate identifier of who Ravi was even after they redefined themself. Maybe this will become relevant in a later book in the series, but it really feels past due for that trigger to be pulled, given the length of the book. If it is being saved, then I don’t think involving all these contracts that straight up ignore the issue was a good idea. I don’t know how it could not even be a consideration in these instances if it’s going to be in play at all. Overall, I was let down by the lack of cleverness or subtlety in using the rules of the fae – the contracts, the names, the inability to lie – given how it was talked up.
January 20, 2025
tl;dr: a bittersweet saga worth the read
If you like slow burn romance, complex characters, a dash of intrigue, and a little bit of faerie smut, then I recommend Saffron and Honey (book 1 of ?).
I loved seeing Ravi and Nicole's budding romance unfold as they wrestled with honesty, vulnerability, self-love, the horrors of capitalism, and their ethical obligations to forces greater than themselves. They're realistically flawed but still trying the best they can to be good to each other. They go on cute little dates trying to unravel a tangled web of magic/science/corruption--and making out in places they shouldn't even be in. I think my favourite interactions in the book are their frank discussions about their shortcomings and how they want to do better with each other. They've definitely got a lot of internalized BS to sort through, including some messed up ideas about their self-worth, attachment issues, and gender roles. But their struggles are relatable; I laughed, I groaned, I shook my head and said "bestie don't do it". I care about the characters, and I want to see them grow and find happiness.
The ending is not especially happy, but there's a thread of hope that things might work out. I'm looking forward to the next book in the series!
If you like slow burn romance, complex characters, a dash of intrigue, and a little bit of faerie smut, then I recommend Saffron and Honey (book 1 of ?).
I loved seeing Ravi and Nicole's budding romance unfold as they wrestled with honesty, vulnerability, self-love, the horrors of capitalism, and their ethical obligations to forces greater than themselves. They're realistically flawed but still trying the best they can to be good to each other. They go on cute little dates trying to unravel a tangled web of magic/science/corruption--and making out in places they shouldn't even be in. I think my favourite interactions in the book are their frank discussions about their shortcomings and how they want to do better with each other. They've definitely got a lot of internalized BS to sort through, including some messed up ideas about their self-worth, attachment issues, and gender roles. But their struggles are relatable; I laughed, I groaned, I shook my head and said "bestie don't do it". I care about the characters, and I want to see them grow and find happiness.
The ending is not especially happy, but there's a thread of hope that things might work out. I'm looking forward to the next book in the series!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews