This was our July book club choice – one of the club members pays more attention to TikTok and BookTok trends so she mentioned this as one that’s been gaining attention. I’m old so I don’t purposely follow booktok but see the occasional reel on IG or Facebook.
I think this was kind of a quintessential summer read – entertaining while you are reading it, nothing groundbreaking and if you remember the book exists in a year, you’ll totally get the sequel but also won’t care if you miss it.
This novel takes place in an alternate history version of England – it’s the 19th century, and Queen Mor, the Fae Queen, as sat the throne of England since she helped the Yorks win the War of the Roses. As part of her reign, every citizen is allowed to make one bargain with her, and usually the noble women do it at 18 as part of their coming out/debut season. The bargains tend to be a bit odd, based on whatever catches Mor’s fancy at the time and even the benefits seem to be double edged at times. Ivy’s father, for example, traded his childhood memories for land. Turns out, it’s hard to build even business relationships when you can’t refer to common experiences. Her mother wanted a better memory but now can’t forget anything. No one, including Lydia (Ivy’s sister) herself, knows what Lydia’s bargain involved, and now it’s about to be Ivy’s turn. With her family in danger of losing their home, their reputation in shatters thanks to Lydia’s odd behavior, it’s up to Ivy to make the right bargain and the right match to benefit her family.
When Queen Mor announces she is holding a competition to find a match for her son, Prince Bram (also fae), Ivy takes the chance and enters her name into the competition. Prince Bram is sweet, and she also finds an unexpected ally in his trouble maker step brother, Prince Emmett, who wants Ivy to win for some reason.
While entertaining, the novel follows the usual tropes and conventions – of course, Ivy finds herself attracted to the black sheep of the family, and there is more to Mor’s reign than meets the eye.
There were a few things I quite liked about this one. Ivy ends up staying at the castle with five other competitors for the prince, and each one gets short chapter/interlude told from their perspective. For the most part, the young women’s motivations for entering the competition are also diverse and not even too focused on finding love with a prince. In fact, I ended up liking them and finding their stories more interesting than Ivy’s in several cases (there’s also a young woman named Marion who is the granddaughter of the Duke of Sherwood so I am interpreting that as a Robin Hood reference).
However, there were also some missed opportunities that I think could have made this novel stand out more. Ivy’s character seemed inconsistent – was she the shy wallflower to her perfect, sparkling sister or the adventurous, slightly rebellious one, protected by her sister always following the rules? Considering how much of Ivy’s motivation initially also involved her sister, I really wished there had been more focus on the sisters together, and also some more exploration of Ivy’s desire to help Lydia while also having some seemingly unfair resentment towards her. There are a few scenes which only made me want more.
I did enjoy the ending and what it was setting up but whether I pay enough attention to realize when the sequel is published is a whole different question.