Dancing with the Lion: Rise

Alexandros, better known to modern readers as Alexander the Great, returns as a young adult in the second Dancing with the Lion historical novel. Alexandros’s best friend and lover, Hephaistion, provides the cool, logical counterbalance to Alexandros’s fiery impulsiveness and impatience, and the two spend quite a lot of the novel navigating political intrigue and danger together as Alexandros rises and falls in the favor of his father, King Philippos. Though their relationship is a central theme of Alexandros’s life, it’s not at the center of the story, and though they argue and disagree like all couples, their relationship is stable and is never really in question. Once again Reames has written a lovely historical novel, but has missed the mark when it comes to what romance readers expect from the genre. (Oct.)