Of Swords and Parasols

Ten years ago, John Aversin, Lord of Alyn Hold, slew a dragon with the aid of his lover, the witch Jenny Waynest, making him the only living dragonslayer.  When a new dragon attacks the kingdom, a young scholar named Gareth sets off to find him, claiming to be sent by the king to summon John to the capital.  What Gareth finds, though, crushes most of his dreams.  Far from being a tall, handsome knight in a majestic keep, John is an average, bespactacled, affable scholar who works in the dirt, and Alyn Hold is a dumpy little village.  Just as bad, John doesn't have a proper lady as a mistress or a wife, but rather a short, frank witch who lives just outside of town.  His dreams, they are crushed! Shattered!  This isn't right!  Woe!  Thankfully, a few close calls snap him out of that, and soon Gareth is learning that not stepping out of a ballad doesn't make a person any less heroic, and that it's often better to fight smart than to worship the rules of chivalry.

Instead of being all about the dragonhunting, the dragonhunting takes a backseat to the court intrigues, Gareth's growing past his youthful ideals, and Jenny's continued struggle between her love for John and their sons, and her love for magic.  The book hits a lot of my kinks, but primarily the clash between practical reality and heroic ideals,  without bashing the heroic ideals, or mocking the person who has them, and also with featuring an old married couple as the leads.  Ok, they're neither old now married, but they've been together for over a decade and have two kids, ok?  I love fiction that portrays an actual couple as interesting and as still having problems, romantic or otherwise, and getting through them, and have never understood this mass conviction that people turn boring once they've gotten together and settled down.  It's no accident that Zoe and Wash are my favorite part of Firefly, or that Raven's Strike and Raven's Shadow(featuring a married couple with teens who tag along with their mother who sets off to tear the world apart when some fool abducts her husband) are my favorite Patricia Briggs books.

Anyway, I have now read and liked the three Barbara Hambly books I was specifically recced, but have been warned not to blindly get her books, as she's apparently of uneven quality.  Anyone want to rec more?