I was very excited for this book at first, but ultimately disappointed. I think that was mostly my fault, for letting my expectations get way too high (for reasons I'll explain), but nevertheless, this didn't hook me enough to want to continue the series.
Rhea's family, and others like it, control the world. In both a mundane way, as her father rules a country, but also in a more profound way. Rhea is responsible for ensuring the turning of the seasons. Her twin brother Alexandros is responsible for the stars and the tides. Her younger sister is in charge of the world's colors. (Her younger brother is ignored.) All of these powers are granted to them by their father, who is responsible for death.
Alexandros makes sure the stars shine by stitching them into a piece of the night sky that he keeps up in his observatory, and the tides he keeps doing their thing using a basin of water. (He also keeps the tides impassibly dangerous around the family home, as protection). The younger sister has paints she uses in the garden, coloring the leaves green in the spring and orange in the fall and coloring the world by doing so. And Rhea, four times a year, marries a consort that she sacrifices a few weeks later to trigger the changing of the season.
Throw in a horrifically abusive father, and you get the reason my expectations were too high: The Library at Mount Char is one of my very favorite books, and In a Garden Burning Gold has very strong Mt. Char vibes.
So setting aside the unfair criticism that this book isn't as good as one of my all time favorites, it was decent. The main axes on which the book turns are Rhea's relationships with her father and twin brother. (Alexandros is also a POV character, and he gets roughly equal screen time, but there's no question Rhea is the protagonist.) Everything to do with her father is appropriately painful to read. She is so conditioned by him to want to please him, so determined to make him proud of her, and so accepting of his abuse as natural. It was heartbreaking in places. Alexandros is similarly conditioned, but their relationship is closer; he is their father's second and deals with him directly every day, while Rhea is often off with her latest consort.
The book's action takes off when they both begin, very tentatively, to do things their father won't approve of. Very carefully, and with the intention of helping him, but nevertheless crossing a line. All four siblings have dealt with the unpredictable terror of their father in different ways, and those differences are what drives the story.
The plot took a few turns that struck me as completely out of left field, and from that point it was hard to regain my immersion in the book. In hindsight I see what was going on, but I think this would have been greatly improved if Rory Power had done a bit more to foreshadow where the story was going.
One final note: holy hell this cover is gorgeous.
In case it wasn’t clear, content warning for parental abuse.
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