A Strange and Stubborn Endurance is a fantastic romance novel amidst a backdrop of fantasy and mystery genre features. Meadows does a lovely job of painting the scenery, describing and characterizing the cast, and portraying trauma, grief, and healing in a way that feels vindicating and real, at least to me (a survivor, myself). The book is filled to the brim with political intrigue, queer and  diverse representation, fleshed out world-building, and some of the sweetest  usage of romance tropes that I could honestly ask for in a queer romance novel. Also, QUALITY HORSE USE AND KNOWLEDGE which is very important to me as a product of the horse-girl-to-queer-enby pipeline. I adore Velasin and Caetheri, and am so excited to pick up the sequel.