Monthly Pick – September 2021: The Midnight Bargain

Title: The Midnight Bargain
Author: C.L. Polk
Genre: Historical Fiction, Romance, Fantasy
Page Count: 384
Published by: Erewhon
Date Published: October 13, 2020
You can find it here: Bookshop.org

The Midnight Bargain is an excellent story to kick off your fall reading, swirling with an intriguing combo of magic, dark magic, demons, and spirits all set within a Regency Era setting that includes ballgowns, parties, and romance. Basically, this book has a little bit of everything! 

While it is an incredibly entertaining fantasy on its own right, The Midnight Bargain is escalated to greater heights with C.L. Polk’s discussion on women’s right and the parallelism they link to the struggles of women today to own their bodies, own their rights.

Entertaining, unique, dark, romantic, featuring two strong leading women with a beautiful friendship – make sure to add this book to your Fall TBR! Synopsis below. 

Synopsis:

Beatrice Clayborn is a powerful sorceress, whose dream is to be able to freely and unapologetically practice her magic. However, in this English Regency-era reimagined world, women are locked in metal collars at marriage to prevent unborn children from being in possession of radical spirits … thereby locking off her powers until no longer of child-bearing years. Her body – and magic – is the possession of her would-be husband.

Desperate to avoid this fate, Beatrice seeks an ancient grimoire that will guide her to the process of binding herself to a greater spirit – thus preventing her ability to bear children, rendering her unable to marry. However she isn’t the only sorceress seeking saving and just when she discovers a powerful grimoire in an unassuming bookshop, it is taken by a rival.

Determined to hunt down and retrieve her stolen treasure – Beatrice finds herself surprisingly befriending this would-be rival and not only that, inconveniently falling for her rival’s handsome, kind, compassionate and wealthy brother.

Torn between love, duty to her family to marry well, and her own passions and freedoms, Beatrice’s decision is painfully difficult in a fantasy world – that bears an all too familiar resemblance to ours – that puts the burden of childbearing all on the women, forcing her to always choose between her heart and herself.

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