Lau­ra R. Samotin’s The Lure of Their Graves, the sequel toThe Sins of Their Bones, com­pli­cates the res­o­lu­tion of the first book with new mar­riage pol­i­tics and the return of old antag­o­nists. Set in the nation of Novo-Svit­se­vo, aes­thet­i­cal­ly impe­r­i­al Rus­sia with Judaism in place of Russ­ian Ortho­doxy, the series stars Dim­itri, the right­ful tzar returned to his throne for the sec­ond book after depos­ing his usurp­er and abu­sive hus­band, Alex­ey. All is not quite well in the wake of Alexey’s mag­i­cal defeat — Dim­itri remains trau­ma­tized both by his rela­tion­ship and by new man­i­fes­ta­tions of the dark ​“Holy Sci­ence” Alex­ey had mas­tered. At the same time, the need for new mar­riage alliances threat­ens the equi­lib­ri­um of his love match with sup­port­ive Vasily. 

The duol­o­gy pri­or­i­tizes the char­ac­ters’ rela­tion­ships and emo­tions over com­pli­cat­ed world-build­ing or pol­i­tics. Notable by their absence are tra­di­tion­al ele­ments of dai­ly Jew­ish life such as kashrut or morn­ing prayers, and the steami­er scenes sug­gest that the char­ac­ters do not wear tzitz­it, a missed oppor­tu­ni­ty for Jew­ish-spe­cif­ic sex­i­ness. Most of the Jew­ish ref­er­ences in the book are con­nect­ed to the undead Alexey’s sin­is­ter mag­ic. In the final act, how­ev­er, we see the pro­tag­o­nist and love inter­est express a con­nec­tion to Jew­ish philosophy. 

For read­ers who are pri­mar­i­ly look­ing for a dark romance, detailed world-build­ing might not be impor­tant. The point is the reader’s, and the rest of the main cast’s, affec­tion for Dim­itri, a sur­vivor of mul­ti­ple trau­mas. Dim­itri is trapped by his posi­tion as tzar, clear­ly unfit for it, yet unwill­ing to give it up after the civ­il war against Alex­ey killed thou­sands of his peo­ple. It is his trau­ma — the unrav­el­ing of it and the rebuild­ing of his sense of secu­ri­ty — that tru­ly inter­ests the author. The plot beats will be famil­iar and sat­is­fy­ing to fans of angsty fan­ta­sy romances, a genre whose con­ven­tions call for the rela­tion­ships between lovers — both des­tined and doomed — to take on a cos­mic emo­tion­al weight. With­in this genre, as in the rela­tion­ships among Samotin’s pro­tag­o­nists, love is the most pro­found mag­ic of all.