Review: The Midnight Bargain by C.L. Polk

 

The Midnight Bargain by C.L. Polk

Publication Date: October 13, 2020

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In a world strikingly similar to Regency England, Beatrice Clayborn is torn between her desire to become a full-fledged Magus and her deeply indebted family's need for her to marry well. Marriage would require her to be locked in a stifling anti-magic collar, lest a malicious spirit inhabit her unborn child, and so married women are forbidden from practicing magic. After conjuring a lesser spirit to aid her magic, Beatrice finds herself forced to navigate the annual Bargaining Season with a terrible secret, forced to find a way to somehow save both her family and her own prospects at future happiness. (While certain encounters with the wealthy, foreign-born Lavan siblings upend her life in ways that any romance fan will find, ahem, somewhat familiar.)

The Midnight Bargain is, in essence, a Regency romance. If you love regency romances, you will likely love this; if you hate them, then the opposite. I happen to love Regency romances--hence the 5 stars. I'm a huge fan of fantasies of manners for that same reason, and I've always enjoyed the subgenre most when such books lean more to the "manners" than the "fantasy". (Not that I prefer them fantasy-less; more that I think the strength of the subgenre likes in the 'manners' portion, and leaning too far to the 'fantasy' element strips the subgenre of what makes it interesting and unique.) And there is a strong fantasy element here--it's just that I felt the manners and romance factors were incredibly strong, which I saw as a plus.

I really enjoyed the author's choice to have the whole "women can't practice magic or demons inhabit their babies" thing be true. It would've been easier, and a bit more pedestrian, to have that turn out to be patriarchal propaganda. That Beatrice cannot easily have her cake and eat it too put meat on the plot's bones. The writing was vivid, the characters were well-drawn, and the plot moved at a good clip. (And Ianthe, of course . . . Ianthe was a treasure.)

There were a few discordant notes, but not too many. By the end, for example, I though the author was striving a bit too hard to introduce conflict, and it led to some absurd situations---the boat scene had me nodding along with Mr. Clayborn, and I really don't think I was meant to. And Beatrice's mother having no role in the social scene was just bizarre; Beatrice would just get dropped off at parties with no chaperone, which really doesn't happen in these types of books. 

But overall, I thought this was an excellent feminist romance, well-recommended for anyone who enjoys clever, well-written fantasies of manners.