I’ve just finished reading Tanya Huff’s Enchantment Emporium, and wow. I’m glad to see there’s a sequel, because there’s a whole lot of world in that world-building. It actually took me a little while to get into the book, and for the first while I wasn’t sure I was going to finish it, because I couldn’t figure out how the Gale family worked and I wasn’t sure if it was just really complicated or if it was going to stay obscure and veiled. Fortunately the complexity did all get explained, and the characters made it worthwhile to stick it out. (Though I do think the first vignette, from a different point of view, could have been skipped.)
Slight spoilers below:
The large extended Gale family is a force of nature; the women rule but the men choose, and together they have enormous power – how much only slowly becomes clear. They also have a lot of sex (the aunties give each cousin a “list” of acceptable partners, to prevent too much consanguinity). Polyamory seems to be fairly routine and choosing a same-sex partner isn’t uncommon. Women in the family gain more power as they get older. The family mostly like each other, but exasperate each other and don’t always agree; some family members do ‘go bad’, but a look at the blurb
The characters, women especially, are strong and each is unique. I particularly enjoyed the flavor of the Calgary setting – of course Tim Horton’s is mentioned a few times but there are also little details like kitty litter being carried routinely in a car trunk. (In case of getting stuck in snow, I presume.)
Good stuff; I appreciate all the things she’s doing in terms of both writing (it took time to sink in but the flip side of that is that the world was very carefully built without infodumps) and respect (good characters of various ages and orientations – and species) but mostly, I enjoyed the hell out of it while reading. I have ordered the sequel, which focuses on two secondary characters in this book, and I look forward to it. I may be checking out more of Huff’s work, too.