It pains me to be writing a critical review of a book I eagerly anticipated. Elizabeth May’s To Cage a God promised so many things on paper: complicated enemies-to-lovers relationships, Six of Crows but make it even darker vibes, and an intriguing (and metal) sounding magic system comprised of caging dragons inside one’s literal bones. What I got, was, generously, a shallow and diluted version of the aforementioned elements that left me disappointed.

To start with what I did enjoy—and the only reason I kept reading—was the sapphic relationship that develops between Galina and another character later in the novel. This relationship is one of the only ones I found believable. It added depth to both characters involved and explored a more robust emotional landscape than most characters got to explore.

Even still, it fell prey to what I’ve sadly come to expect from women-loving-women relationships depicted in fiction, which is sexual chemistry and desire taking a backseat to less explicit elements such as romantic connection. This in and of itself is not a problem; fade-to-black scenes are great and exist to be enjoyed by readers and employed by authors for various reasons. There is at least one open-door scene as well. However, when you also have a parallel M/F romance in the same book where the characters are unrepentant in their horniness for each other and every other encounter is an explicit sex scene, it does tend to highlight this discrepancy in neon lights.

Speaking of the M/F romance in this novel… It was not for me, to put it mildly. Sera, who the novel takes great pains to depict as a stone-cold badass, gradually loses her entire personality to her insufferable lover, right down to the very magic in her bones. Her love interest embodies every arrogant, selfish, amoral trope you expect of aggressively heternormative romance heroes and shows barely an iota of true consideration for Sera, opting instead to put the emotional labour of making her his ‘moral compass’ on her amongst other actions I found hard to stomach. The dynamic of two estranged partners with opposing political goals is a dynamic I usually love, but no amount of them pulling knives on each other could save this one for me.

The characters all around in this novel fell flat on their face for me. Everyone felt like a caricature, from the mustache-twirling primary antagonist to the participants in the cut-and-paste BookTok exes-to-morally-dubious-situationship romance. The novel did not sell me on anyone’s motivations. Characters mostly seemed to act in service of a defined role or plot device than acting like people, which, as a reader who is primarily character-driven, means I was probably destined not to enjoy this.

The setting and political intrigue were impacted by the issue of character work. It made it so the stakes—which should have been high, what with all the death and trauma and mayhem—lost a lot of their meaning. I also just wanted more worldbuilding in general. The coolest fantasy elements, namely the magic system, were mostly a prop to justify how extra horrible the ruling class is in the novel despite several PoV characters having access to said magic system. 

In an oversaturated romantasy market, To Cage a God offers little innovation to the Imperial Russia setting and even less character depth and development, particularly regarding the multiple romances involved. Though I’ve enjoyed some of May’s other work and plan to keep an eye on future releases, I won’t be continuing with this duology and don’t recommend it.

Thank you to DAW and NetGalley for an advance review copy. All opinions are my own.