In Tamsyn Muir’s The Locked Tomb series’, Gideon The Ninth we are first introduced to a young woman named Gideon who has spend her entire life abused, rejected and trained to be a fighter well beyond normal humans. 

The Cold Ever After written by Jeremy Whitley (Navigating With You) and illustrated by Megan Huang  has a similar premise, only we meet the protagonist long after everything has gone to shit. Sir Noelani Mahi’ai was a young girl chosen to be the Holy Champion. Her teacher was an abusive fucker who did everything in the name of his god. Like Gideon, Noelani survived and grew stronger out of necessity. Eventually she and young Queen Isadora fell in love. When the Queen had a child with the often-absent king, the two of them raised the new princess as their own. But there was no happily ever after for them, and Noelani was set-up, exiled and, she hoped, forgotten. Now Noelani has been called back by Queen Isadora, to find the missing princess, their daughter.

I compare this to Gideon the Ninth because, like that protagonist, Noelani is despised by the people around her, who fear and need her. She is raised in violence, and lives in despair, but keeps fighting. Folks that liked Gideon, but wanted it to be a bit more grim, or take itself a bit more seriously, might find what they want in this story. 

To be honest, I found it a hard read. Not because it was badly written, but because it was unremitting from beginning to end. There are no good people, bad decisions are made for bad reasons, all the men in the story are appalling and the bad guy, as it were, is both obvious and tiring. Reading this, I was reminded why Shakespeare had comic relief in his plays, no matter how dire they seem now. You just need to sometimes breathe. 

But again, if you loved the grit, violence and horror of Gideon and hoped for even more with a very human, but more selfish outcome, you might genuinely enjoy The Cold Ever After.

Ratings: 

Art – 7 It is often on the cusp of being really good or really bad in places
Story – 7 Same as above
Characters – 7 There are no good people, but there are people who might have been good, but could not be
Service – 4 Some nudity
Lesbian – 10

Overall – For me this was a not a high score, maybe a 5, but I can totally imagine for the right audience, it would be significantly higher.