The Olive Conspiracy is the fourth book in the Mangoverse series, this review does not spoil the previous books.
Short blurb: When a would-be blackmailer shows up dead, Queen Shulamit realizes he must have tried extorting someone very dangerous… and the investigation leads straight to an international plot to destroy her country’s economy. Worse, an old crush of hers, Queen Carolina of Imbrio, may be involved. A love story between women, between queen and country, and between farmers and their crops.
I feel about this book as I do about the others in the series — it’s a little unpolished in terms of its writing and simple plot, but it’s pretty fun and charming anyway. It’s a quick read full of queer and Jewish characters. (We have TWO beautiful, happy wlw relationships, the first trans woman in the series, and a little visit from our mlm couple thrown in at the end.)
Since I don’t have so much to say about the book itself, I’d just like to add a cool thing I noticed about the characters’ Jewish perspectives!
While traditionally Jewish prayers use he/him pronouns for G-d, it’s not uncommon for feminist or social justice oriented prayer books/other materials to use different pronouns for G-d. I’m explaining that for anyone who doesn’t know because in this book, while Shula’s father uses he/him pronouns for G-d in the flashback scenes, Shula herself uses she/her pronouns for G-d in her prayers (I can’t remember if we see her do that in this book, but we definitely see it in A Harvest of Ripe Figs). Which totally makes sense, because Shula is a feminist lesbian who focuses her life around women, and she would see G-d that way. Meanwhile Yael refers to G-d as both “king and queen”, which shows her different perspective of G-d as nonbinary. And it’s just a cool, thoughtful touch to the way these characters practice Judaism that also adds to their characterization.
octoberspirit 