The part of this book that I really liked was the supernatural PI being called into solve a mystery in the Fae Kingdom of Night. The part that I struggled with, a lot, was the King of Night, The Bargainer, falling in love with a traumatized teenage girl.
Calypso “Callie” Lillis is a siren. She can compel humans to tell her things and to do things against their will. Very convenient for a private investigator. She’s in business with her longtime best friend, whom we don’t see nearly enough. She also owes hundreds of favors to The Bargainer, Desmond Flynn, the king of the fairy Kingdom of Night. She hasn’t seen or heard from him in 7 years. He suddenly shows up, intending to collect his favors, because he has a problem. People in the fairy realm are disappearing. Some of them, the women who are warriors come back in a stasis, neither alive nor dead, with children who are strange. He needs Callie’s siren ability to compel answers.
All of this is very good. I wanted this story.
The problem is the other story happening here. Des meets Callie when she calls for a bargain right after she has killed her step-father. She is 15, almost 16. Apparently, 16 is the age of majority in the supernatural world. BUT, it’s still this world and she’s still a teenager and I have no idea how old the KING OF NIGHT might happen to be. So the whole story is intercut with flashbacks to Des hanging out in Callie’s dorm room (he got her enrolled in a boarding school far away from her step-father’s dead body). Of course Callie is going to have a crush on the good looking adult man who saved her. More problematic is the age indeterminate adult (fairy) man who is clearly pining for the teenage girl.
I wish there had been much more mystery solving. I wish Callie had been aged up. She’s only 23 or 24 when the current story takes place and I just felt so tired. I don’t know if I’m going to read the rest of this series. But Laura Thelassa is clearly an accomplished writer, so I’ll check out her other books.
CW: history of child sexual assault by caregiver, infanticide discussed, creepy threatening children, and a mystery involving: rape, abduction, involuntary impregnation, and quasi-murder.
I received this as an advance reader copy from Bloom Books and NetGalley. My opinions are my own, freely and honestly given.