The Owlbear and the Omens is the first novel by Aengie Scevity.
Finished on: 15.10.2024
[I won this book in a LibraryThing Early Reviewer give-away.]

Content note: slavery, (critical treatment of) racial slurs/racism, misogyny

Plot:
Princess Phosphoria has literally fought herself free from a position of obscurity in her father’s court. Winning a tournament, she was named heir to the Zekzterian colony Great Leven where her brother is currently ruling – and dying of a disease. Phos knows that her job in Great Leven won’t be easy: the country consists of seven realms that don’t necessarily get along with each other and that she will need to bring into line. There is also rumor of a long lost prince of the royal family that the Zekzterians deposed. And Phos herself was blessed by the Owlbear at birth, meaning that she can only speak the truth. With her trusted right hand Dalia, Phos makes the voyage into her new life, knowing that the biggest bartering chip she has is her own hand in marriage. And maybe she can give that to more than one man for the sake of peace?

I was a little hesitant about The Owlbear and the Omens, starting with the fact that Phosphoria is named Phosphoria. But I was intrigued enough to give the book a try anyway – and absolutely pleasantly surprised. Despite a few weaknesses, it is an excellent read that had me staying up late to finish it.

Since there is a romance trope that is most often referred to as “reverse harem” (though I have gathered that there is some discussion about the term, there is no clear substitute that has arrived yet, afaik) – one female character that has romantic and/or sexual relationships with several male characters and not in a serial monogamy way, though also not really in a polyamorous way – and that trope is more often rather erotic, or spicy as kids these days call it, let me just make this clear: While The Owlbear and the Omens technically falls under the category, it is not actually very romance-driven, and there is no spice at all.

Instead it is a book about fraught politics and how political marriages can actually bring people together. There is also a murder subplot, though that investigation takes a backseat to the marriage stuff (to which the murders are deeply connected). I didn’t mind that because one, I’m not much of a crime reader and two, I guessed the culprit rather early on and was way more invested in the marriage stuff anyway.

The book does have some problems: Phos has 19 suitors vying for her hand, and it does get hard to keep them apart, especially since a few of them are barely more present than being a name and a hair color. They all compete in trials and Phos meets with some of them one on one, but not all of them, which was also not an ideal story-telling choice. I think, fewer suitors – maybe only two per house instead of three – would have been enough.

There were also some editing mishaps, some misspelled or superfluous words here and there, especially the longer into the book we got. At some point, Phos mentions a meeting with one suitor, to then say a couple of chapters later that she never met with him (I didn’t go back and check whether he was one of the dudes who got one on one time or not). But nothing too bad. The only thing that really would have needed more work was the ending which was a little too abrupt. It basically ends with the revelation of who the murderer is, but then has nothing of the fall-out. I really wanted to know what happened after with the house the murderer came from, with the husbands and so on. The book gives us nothing of that.

But it did give me an excellent reading experience, characters I could root for and a not uninteresting fantasy world. It was a little too royalist overall, maybe. Nevertheless, I couldn’t put it down and really wanted to know what happened. Scevity definitely shows a lot of promise with this debut work, so I will be keeping an eye out.

Summarizing: definitely fun.