[hildea]

I can't remember reading any books with magic which portray it in a bad light, so my recommendations will have to be non-magical.

I thought of a few more:

Naomi Novik: Temeraire (a series of eight or ten books or so). Napoleonic war with dragons. The dragons are sentient, but treated as something between slaves and valued servants, so in addition to war drama there's a lot of plot around human rights for dragons

Ellen Kushner: The Tremontaine books, starting with Swordspoint. Feels a bit like Three Musketeers - duels and intrigues and politics and love.
Um, nope, I checked this, and there's some sex. The sex isn't explicit, though. If you like, you can check this scene and let us know if that's something you're OK with, or if you'd prefer to avoid it.

Spoiler:

Alec breathed out in a feathery sigh as Richard sought out his pleasure, always careful not to startle him with anything sudden or unexpected. Sometimes finding it was like stalking prey, or coaxing a wild creature to his hand. Alec stopped speaking, let his eyelids fall thin over his bright eyes, and Richard felt his body coursing fluid like water, as though he held the power of a river in his arms.