What is Rachel Neumeier reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Rachel Neumeier, author of Winter of Ice and Iron.

Her entry begins:

Somehow in 2017 everything that made the biggest impression on me had a strong historical component, though the works I have in mind ranged from almost-secondary-world fantasy to straight historical.

Earlier this summer, I read an older trilogy by a new-to-me author, Naomi Kritzer: Freedom’s Gate, Freedom’s Apprentice and Freedom’s Sisters. Here we have fantasy where history has been altered enough the resulting world is hardly recognizable. In Kritzer’s world, Alexander the Great lived a long life and conquered the world, or near enough. Now a long-subjugated people is edging toward revolution while enslaved djinni complicate matters. Magic is powerful, but practitioners inevitably develop bipolar syndrome, which is shown realistically although not in modern terms. Through the whole trilogy, complicated ethical dilemmas are fundamental, even more so than physical conflict. This is also a story where...[read on]

About Winter of Ice and Iron, from the publisher:

In this gorgeous, dark fantasy in the spirit of Jacqueline Carey, a princess and a duke must protect the people of their nations when a terrible threat leaves everyone in danger.

With the Mad King of Emmer in the north and the vicious King of Pohorir in the east, Kehara Raehema knows her country is in a vulnerable position. She never expected to give up everything she loves to save her people, but when the Mad King’s fury leaves her land in danger, she has no choice but to try any stratagem that might buy time for her people to prepare for war—no matter the personal cost.

Hundreds of miles away, the pitiless Wolf Duke of Pohorir, Innisth Eanete, dreams of breaking his people and his province free of the king he despises. But he has no way to make that happen—until chance unexpectedly leaves Kehara on his doorstep and at his mercy.

Yet in a land where immanent spirits inhabit the earth, political disaster is not the greatest peril one can face. Now, as the year rushes toward the dangerous midwinter, Kehera and Innisth find themselves unwilling allies, and their joined strength is all that stands between the peoples of the Four Kingdoms and utter catastrophe.

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--Marshal Zeringue