Well, now they’ve gone and done it.

A medieval-ish set fantasy with no incest, no assault, and no whitewashing. It does have highly intelligent women on thrones and as the power behind them; acceptance of queer relationships; and solid, detail-oriented world building that draws the reader in and allows them to walk secret passages, garden paths, and city streets alongside Lia, Xania, and the rest of their compatriots.

Pinch me.

It is Helen Corcoran’s Queen of Coin and Whispers and, in case you couldn’t tell, it is my kind of fantasy.

A brief synopsis? Why, of course.

After Lia’s uncle dies, she inherits his throne and with it, the thousands of problems that come with a poorly ruled kingdom and an empty treasury. Opposed by most of her Parliament, pressured to marry for political expediency, and teetering on the precarious bridge that exists between the monarch she wants to be and the queen she thinks her people want her to be, Lia has only two people she can trust: her childhood friend and secretary Matthias and her new spymaster and lover, Xania. But will they be able to save Lia when a usurper threatens everyone she holds dear in order to claim her crown?

Look, I’m all for a good quest narrative. They’re fun. They’re comforting and comfortable. They’re risk and adventure by proxy, which has a certain thrill. I’m a fan of epic battles, though it seems they’re too commonly used as a device to hide a lack of cohesive plot and character development… because who needs to know the rules of a magical system if you’re going to cut everyone’s head off at the end anyway?

What I find myself wanting more these days, especially in my sci-fi and fantasy, are immersive experiences – not familiar tropes I can lean on but, rather new worlds in which I can lose myself completely. I want the experience of reading rather than simply the physical act of it.

Queen of Coin and Whispers is definitely a book that gave me the former experience.

One of the impressive things about Corcoran’s narrative is that she crafts an entirely new world without once delivering the dreaded info dump. All the information she needs to relay is conveyed through dialogue and description – quietly, subtly. She allows the audience to play the part of spymaster alongside Xania; to find hidden doors, uncover secrets, and break codes; to engage with the narrative directly but without breaking the fourth wall or otherwise separating the reader from it or jarring her out of continuity. That, my friends, is good writing.

The other aspect of Queen of Coin and Whispers that really caught my attention, as I mentioned above, is that Corcoran completely tossed out all the sexuality garbage that’s haunted fantasy since the beginning. FFS, it’s time someone did! And yet, she’s managed to craft realistic expectations in her larger world: queerness is accepted in most (but not all) of the nations she’s brought to life. Some accept queer relationships but don’t allow them for legal union. Others, like Lia’s, allow for union except in the case of a monarch, who must provide the kingdom with a biological heir.

For far, far too long, queerness in fantasy has been relegated to the shadows, a dirty secret be kept or an excuse for persecution, a self-fulfilling death prophesy, or The Point of the story. In Corcoran’s narrative, it’s simply a part of someone’s being – but only a small part – and it becomes A Thing only when it affects a decision such as royal marriage and succession, affecting and affected by the plot but never central to it.

I want to say a little bit about the ending, though I don’t want to give away any major spoilers because I think it’s important to note where literature allows queer characters to have happy ones. Queen of Coin and Whispers doesn’t wrap up in a neat package tied with a bow. Alas, life rarely does and to expect a story of politics and intrigue to do so isn’t terribly realistic.

Nevertheless, Lia and Xania do find happiness of a sort and that’s so important for queer readers to see. For us to know that no matter how bumpy the road, no matter how many obstacles may present themselves, not every story ends in tragedy or in death. It’s important to see the “kill-your-queers” trope isn’t universal and that, although change is slow, our culture is starting to realize we want, and deserve, more.

Queen of Coin and Whispers by Helen Corcoran (O’Brien Press) is out now.