5 ⭐ CW: (provided by the author) grief/loss, death, war, gore, cussing, sexual content

In the Midst of Omens by Nicole Bailey is book one in the Legend of Gilgamesh duology. Another mythology retelling banger from Nicole! As usual, her characters are wonderful and compelling, and you can't help but love them and root for them, even when you already know what will happen based on the original story. Nicole weaves a new story from the oldest written story in history and makes it as gay as it was meant to be! It was a trip seeing my name in the acknowledgements of this book. I have been a staunch Nicole Bailey hype person since connecting with her on Instagram. You won't regret reading her books. 

We follow Gilgamesh, King of Uruk and blessed with god-blood. He is ruthless, selfish, and arrogant. He is known for taking many wives and pulling other kings off their thrones and shaming them in front of their people. Gilgamesh is constantly looking to the future, trying to craft a legacy that will outlive him, making him unable to live and enjoy the moment. When the gods create gods blessed wild man, Enkidu, Gilgamesh finds himself contending with something new and not so easy to defeat. 

I loved Enkidu right away! I loved an unconventional cinnamon roll. Enkidu is so innocent and pure, and exists to humble Gilgamesh and bring him down a peg. He's kind of like a muscular manic pixie dream girl lol. Gilgamesh is a little hard to stomach at first until Enkidu shows up and starts sanding away those edges. I do love the way Nicole has depicted Gilgamesh; he's both generous and selfish, loving and fierce. I also loved Shamhat as Gilgamesh 's Queen. She was so strong, and wasn't afraid to stand up to her husband. She had so much agency. 

Though this was based on the Epic of Gilgamesh, this was a love story through and through. It was beautiful seeing two very masculine figures learn to be vulnerable with each other and learn how to love. It was very sweet, and also quite spicy 🥵. Not only is this an MM romance, but we also see polyamory between Gilgamesh, Shamhat and her partners, including a FF relationship. Nicole has also found a way to include nonbinary characters as priests of Inanna. Of course, Nicole can't just let us be happy at the end, so I'm very much looking forward to book two to see how it all ends.