Jo Graham, A Blackened Mirror. Cambridge MA: Candlemark & Gleam. 2023.
I've really enjoyed Graham's space opera, Sounding Dark and Warlady. A Blackened Mirror is historical fantasy with a romantic turn, set in Rome in 1489 and told from the point of view of the adolescent Giulia Farnese: later lover to one pope and the sister of another. Farnese has visions, and a powerful faction in the Curia wants to use her against their enemies. Enemies which include the man to whom she has conceived a definite attraction: the much older Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, three times her age.
Graham does a great turn in court intrigue, mixing political machinations with some atmospheric magical underpinnings, and adding a fine dash of an adolescent girl stuck in a sexless marriage and lusting after someone who's willing to nurture her mind. Giulia's relationship with Cardinal Borgia has a high bar to clear to make romantic affection palatable to me: whatever about political, mercenary compromises, he's so very much older and more powerful than her that it takes persuasive writing and excellent characterisation to pull it off. Graham does, though by offering her Giulia Farnese, I think, a rather kinder version of Rodrigo Borgia than any of his contemporaries would have seen.
It's an enjoyable book, and I intend to get my hands on the sequel.