THE COLOR THIEF
by Emily Poirier
A princess finds unexpected love on her dangerous quest to right a wrong in this queer new-adult fantasy.
After rejecting seven matrimonial prospects, Princess Helena decides to make a match with pleasing No. 8—Prince Branson of the kingdom of Osdeth. Helena delays the engagement when her parents reveal that they are cursed and dying, the consequences of their involvement in a slaughter of witches and a child given up long ago. Appalled at the injustice her parents perpetrated before she was born, Helena embarks on a secret quest to find the child, now an adult, and bring her home to her rightful place in the kingdom. Her only companion: Dresden, a high-ranking female officer in the Royal Guard who is secretly in love with the princess, whom she is honor-bound to protect. Much of this well-crafted novel focuses on the tender bond that develops between Helena and Dresden during their hazardous journey (intermittent bloodshed, an attack by a ferocious denizen of a dark forest, a raid on a witches’ camp). On their long trek, the barrier between royal and commoner falls away, and Helena realizes she has romantic feelings for Dresden. Poirier couches the book’s limited but explicit sexual content in terms of love and mutual respect. Here, same-sex relationships are authentically part of the fabric of the world the author has created; royals are expected to produce heirs, but lovers of either sex outside of marriage are accepted. In the book’s vivid fantasy twist, central to the plot, color is synonymous with life force. (“In the beginning, all was a colorless void. Then God, the Artist, saw fit to paint the universe in color...and that divine color resided in every living person.”) The colors of nature, of décor, of clothes, of hair and eyes are noted throughout; the absence of color is anathema. Female strength and integrity are the admirable cores of the book save for a few out-of-character, stereotypical “smirks” and “pouts.” The saga continues in Book 2, The Color Plague (2019).
A colorful fantasy setting, strong female protagonists, same-sex romance, and explicit but tender sexual content.