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While getting started with this novella, something was tickling at the back of my mind. Shortly after the first chapter, I realized that I recognized the names “Raneadhros” and “Ranea”. This is the same world as his early stories “A Gift of Fire, A Gift of Blood”, and “The Lighthouse”. It’s good to be back. (Watts, get these stories into ebook format; I know the former is available free in HTML, but they both deserve a good portable reading format.)

Like Watts’ other stories, Roulette is a fairly typical person. No amazing abilities or other hooks to make Roulette ‘main character bait’. She grew up in a backwater area of the empire, and wants more than living on the family vineyard will ever get her. She is attractive (if you go for curvy raccoons Procya), and knows how to dance. She’s using this to earn money to travel to the capital and find herself a rich husband.

However, in the human-dominated province of Achoren, she runs into trouble when a need for a bit of extra money turns into a private dance, assault, and death. Roulette has run straight into explosive local politics with stakes higher than she can willingly credit.

The political side is sadly even more familiar today than back in 2013 when this was written. But this is still a character-driven story, and as ever, Watts has given us a good cast of characters to follow. The action (because of course there’s action) is good, Roulette does spend a little too much time trying to duck the story she’s in, but Rissi is a nicely complicated character, who drives much of the middle.

I don’t know that this could hang together as a longer story, but it makes a great novella. Recommended, and I do hope we see some of the characters again someday.