The blurb:
Beatrice Clayborn is a sorceress who practices magic in secret, terrified of the day she will be locked into a marital collar to cut off her powers. She dreams of becoming a full-fledged mage, but her family are in severe debt, and only her marriage can save them.
Beatrice finds a grimoire with the key to becoming a mage, but a rival sorceress swindles the book right out of her hands. Beatrice summons a spirit to help, but her new ally exacts a price: Beatrice’s first kiss . . . with the sorceress’s brother: the handsome, compassionate, and fabulously wealthy Ianthe Lavan.
The review:
The Midnight Bargain is a book that I don’t think many of my friends were expecting me to love as much as I did.
I am… slightly notorious in my hatred for nobility. And displays of wealth. And formal manners of speaking. I am a bit of a stereotype in that I am the kind of lower-working-class Scottish person that is far too quick to decry things I know nothing about as “posh”. It’s a character flaw.
So I was a little wary when I picked up The Midnight Bargain. I had heard it was good. I have some co-bloggers who thought it was great. But I was hesitant that it wouldn’t be a good book-to-reader match. Fortunately, this turned out to be exactly the book I needed at exactly the moment I’d needed it.
The Midnight Bargain, I believe, is a regency fantasy Romance set in an alternate world. Beatrice’s Clayborn’s family are just about middle-class — which means they can afford to employ a maid, make some speculative investments, and rent a home on a fashionable street for the summer of Beatrice’s bargaining season. Unfortunately, Beatrice’s father is… not so good with money. In fact, his latest investment is Beatrice herself. The fashionable house, the lovely dresses… these are a last, desperate throw of the dice in the hopes of securing Beatrice a profitable marriage. Which is a tad unlucky, considering Beatrice has no intentions to marry.
But if she doesn’t… the Clayborns are done. Beatrice’s younger sister will have no chance to have a bargaining series of her own, which is all she’s ever wanted. All she’s ever been taught to want.
Beatrice is caught between the world she wants and the one that society tries to force on her. She wants to be a magician. A scholar. To make a bargain with a greater spirit. She wants to be her own person rather than be collared by her husband, with her magic locked away for fear that it will poison some hypothetical baby. She hunts down secret, encoded books of magic, learning all that she can. Until the events of the story, she thought she was the only one.
That’s the premise. It’s simple. Uncomplicated. But by design.
This is a book that saw my hatred for uncontested nobility in fantasy novels, took me aside, and told me that it agreed with me. This is a book that has so much to say on the topic of women’s rights. And it does so while totally embracing traditional femininity. It does so while making very, very clear that no-one is sicker of the inheritance and hoarding of power by old rich men than women. And I fucking loved that.
With every dance Beatrice attends, with every smile or kiss she steals from the man who leaves her breathless (the man deemed “too good” for her), the underlying, rage-inducing question is always… why should she have to settle? No matter how good the alternative is made to look, why should she HAVE to settle?
But even with that rage buried at the heart of the story, there is a thread of optimism that is present throughout. All of the main cast of characters are so enthusiastic, to a degree I found infectious. Their wants and motivations may be simple. There might not be too much on-page complexity. But they appeal to complex real-world subjects, and in any case I didn’t feel the lack. Part of that will be down to when this book came to me. I’d just read a few novels that I found a little dry and uninspiring, and this was the perfect medicine.
In terms of prose and dialogue, The Midnight Bargain embraces certain tropes that some readers will love and others will loathe. There is a good amount of time describing the clothes that characters are wearing, and there are a more than a few “Whatever is the matter” and “Oh father, how could you” type lines throughout. Personally, I found these part of the charm, but admittedly think that the novelty would soon wear off if I was exposed to much more of it.
Again, The Midnight Bargain turned out to be exactly the book I needed at exactly the moment I needed it. It’s hopeful, it’s brimming with enthusiasm, and it has a simple yet powerful point to make. If it sounds like your kind of thing, I encourage you to dive in.
We received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review. Thank you to Orbit UK for the review copy!
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