One of my absolute favourite genres is fantasy of manners – Regency or Victorian inspired fantasy which takes all those balls and tearooms and adds magic – and I’m happy to say that The Midnight Bargain is a new favourite in the genre!

Content warnings: misogyny and societal control/abuse of women including control of reproductive rights.

While I understand marketing this to cash in on the success of the Bridgerton TV series, the similarities are extremely minimal. The Midnight Bargain is set in a Regency-inspired time period, but it’s not our world, and there are some significant differences in how society works; it also has a single perspective, and isn’t nearly so focused on sex and romance. It is, however, a very good Regency-inspired fantasy full of etiquette, romance, and magic – I had a wonderful time. This is a genre that for me always manages to feel cosy, even when it tackles some serious issues, and I loved the combination of magic, feminist thought, and fluffy romance.

Beatrice is an enjoyable heroine who will feel very familiar to anyone who has read much in the historical romance genre, fantasy-based or not. She’s a smart, determined young woman who feels trapped by society’s rules, except here they aren’t just the regular ‘women must get married and not pursue their interests’ kind, but also that women are forbidden from doing magic while they’re of childbearing age. On marriage, the women of Chasland are forced to wear collars that suppress their powers until there’s no chance they could have children, so for Beatrice, who wants to study magic more than anything, marriage is something to be dreaded. It’s an interesting, if slightly heavy-handed, way to amp up the marital pressures of the period, and puts Beatrice firmly in the “obstinate, headstrong girl” mould. I really enjoyed watching her learn to be herself through her friendship with the Lavans, who as foreigners, offer a rather different perspective.

There is a strong romance plot here, and the ending meets all the criteria for a romance novel, but I actually think that Beatrice’s personal development is far more the focus of the book. Yes, that includes falling in love with Ianthe, but it also includes standing up for herself, seeking out the secrets of magic, learning how to have friends, and creating a better world for the women who come after her. If you’re put off by the romance element, don’t be, because this is first and foremost a story of girl power. Beatrice and Ysbeta’s friendship, and their quest to learn magic, are so important to the plot. I actually wish it had been a romance between the two of them, though there are character reasons why that can’t be! But yes, if I were selling this book, I would focus on the feminist aspects and magic over the romance. It’s immensely fun and interesting even if you took the romance out!

The real star of the whole book, for me, is Nadi, the luck spirit Beatrice summons early in the book. Nadi is a creature of pleasure, and brings a really fun twist to the very rule-bound world both for the reader and for Beatrice herself. I’m spoiling nothing, but Nadi was pretty much my favourite thing, and even made me shed some tears! Though they don’t have much in common (one being a small furry creature and one being an incorporeal spirit), I think that if you liked Mephi in The Bone Shard Daughter, you’ll enjoy Nadi’s voice and Beatrice and Nadi’s alliance!

My one complaint about the book in general is an issue that I’ve had with Polk’s writing in the past: I think her world-building can be too opaque. There’s a tricky line to walk between info-dumping everything or not explaining enough, and unfortunately I feel this tends a bit to the latter side. This is set in an alt-Regency world, but outside of the fashion and etiquette, there are some significantly different elements that the narration kind of assumes we know about, which means that characters mention things offhand that the reader actually has no point of reference for. This can be done well, and means you have to use your brain to infer something about the world, but there are social and political issues here that are key to the plot that are simply never explained, like why Chasland (an England analogue) has such very different views on women’s magic to the other countries. There’s a bunch of history there, presumably, but in trying not to dump that on us, I think Polk actually left too much unclear. It’s not actually an enormous issue for the book as a whole – I decided at a certain point to stop trying to understand it, and had a great time once I had – it’s just a niggling little thing that pulls this down from being a five star read for me.

(Actually, I have one more very small complaint. I hate some of the names in this book. Ianthe, mentioned above, is the main male love interest, but has a name I’ve only ever seen used for girls, and I couldn’t work out if it was being done intentionally to shake things up genderwise, or just by mistake, as most of the other names seemed relatively traditional for the period. I also absolutely irrationally hate the name ‘Danton Maisonette’, which is just ridiculous.)

Fans of Stephanie Burgis’s Harwood Spellbook series or KJ Charles’s Charm of Magpies books will find much to love here, but it’s definitely worth checking out if you’re a fantasy lover who wants to step into historical romance, or a historical romance lover who wants to step into fantasy. Especially if you like your women rebellious, your society flawed, and your spirits adorable! Despite my criticisms, I had an absolutely brilliant time with this book, and highly recommend it. Four and a half out of five stars, rounded up for NetGalley!

CL Polk never ever fails to write a beautiful story. This book was everything I wanted it to be and so much more. I love all of the characters and would love to read more in this world!

The Midnight Bargain is fantasy romance at its best! I loved the nod to regency England and the heroine was a fierce, determined, woman who knew what she wanted and wasn't afraid to go after it.

I really enjoyed this book. The regency setting really supports the feminist themes explored and I really felt for the characters and enjoyed the subsequent discussion. The romance was cute and angsty, as expected from regency inspired romance. I would highly recommend it.

This feminist fantasy is absolutely fantastic. If you like historical fiction featuring social seasons and debutantes ball you'll love this!

There were times in this when I was absolutely infuriated with the inequalities between men and women. The characters were easy to invest in and the side characters were well developed!

Very enjoyable read!

This book was a hair predictable .... Well it was a lot predictable. Following our main character all she wants to be is a mage but only men can be magus. Women are collared to suppress their powers so they can have babies until they go thru the change and THEN they are uncollared but after 25 is too late to become a mage. So, Beatrice doesn't want to marry but become a mage.

Okay, it's all predicament and the main character is pretty selfish but the conclusion was cute

The general idea of it was so good, thus why I requested this title. Yet it felt so incredibly boring and lackluster, I just couldn't connect and every time I thought of picking it up, I would dread it over and over again.

I'm sure this will work for many people, sadly not one of them.

Dnf at 25%

I loved every single element of this book. It's as if C. L. Polk could see into my mind and wrote it just for me. Me, as I desperately wanted to be in my 20s, and also me now, looking with fondness back 20 plus years and laughing at just how little I knew then!

I really loved the premise of this book, and the interactions with magic and magical beings was definitely intriguing. But I found the main character to be somewhat...ungraspable? I couldn't quite feel along with her, and the magic felt like it kind of faded into the background. I did like the love interest, but that wasn't enough to keep me reading - got about halfway through I realised that I wasn't particularly enjoying things so just decided to DNF this one.

I requested this one last fall, mostly because I always like historical fantasy novels and because of the simple, but beautiful, cover art. Romance is always a plus too! But here we are in the spring of 2021 before I finally got around to it. Part of that is due to my own poor management of my TBR pile, of course. But my recent enjoyment of “Sorcerer to the Crown,” a title to which this one sounds similar, was really the kick in the pants I needed top finally pick this one up. Unfortunately, that same comparison that spurred my renewed interest is also the thing that ultimately hurt this book for me in the end.

For Beatrice, the life path laid out before her is as set-in-stone as it is unwanted. With a destitute family depending on her, she unhappily looks ahead to a life where she will be forced to give up her magic in order to marry well and restore her family’s prospects. In her efforts to avoid this life, Beatrice pursues a powerful, magical book that will unlock her abilities and make her a Magnus. But as she gets closer and closer to this opportunity, the choices before her become harder and harder. When she meets an intriguing young man, she begins to realize that she will have to lose one of her loves: a beloved husband or her magic.

While I didn’t love this book, there were a few things that stood out to me on the positive side. I thought the integration of the magical system and the Regency world-building was interesting and unique. It was fairly simplistic, but in some ways I think that worked well for this book that was trying to span at least three different genres: fantasy, historical fiction, and romance. And what included was interesting in its own right, with the grimoires and the summoning of spirits at the heart of the fantasy. I also thought the complication of the dangers magic posed to childbearing was an interesting, if a bit heavy-handed, wrinkle to throw in the fold.

However, there were a few too many things that got in the way of my enjoying those aspects of the story too much. Immediately, I struggled with the writing. There is a lot of telling and a distinct lack of showing in the style of the story. And this is especially tedious in the beginning of the story where many bits of information are rather inexpertly dumped on to readers with very little done to obscure this goal. This is a personal preference, of course, but I also found myself becoming increasingly distracted and annoyed by the use of exclamation points in the writing. Not simply in dialogue, but in the actual description of events. It made many of these passages read as juvenile and a bit ridiculous.

I also found the main character fairly unlikable, coming across more annoying than fierce. The love story was also very superficial. It’s pretty much your typical insta-love story, and from there all the “drama” feels artificial and contrived. None of which helps the main character’s likability in the least. The conflict between her (instant) love with the hero, who seemed like obviously a genuinely good guy right from the start, and retaining her magic began to lose its weight fairly early.

The story itself had strange pacing, seeming to drag for long periods in the middle only to pick up again, briefly, towards the end. This wasn’t helped by the fact that, all told, it’s a fairly straight-forward and predictable affair. I struggled quite a bit to maintain interest, which is always a fairly bad sign when I reflect back on my feelings on a book. Overall, I think there are likely better examples of books like this, “Sorcerer to the Crown” (obviously) and also “The Dark Days Club” and its sequels come to mind.

Rating 6: A unique idea falters under poor pacing and a plot that veers to closely to predictable tropes.

Really enjoyed the story and premise of the book. The world building was unique and interesting and I loved how well it was explained and described.
Unfortunately the characters felt a little lacking to me and I wish they had been more fleshed out and more nuanced.
Overall an enjoyable read.

It took me about a chapter to get into this book and then I was hooked! I really enjoyed the parallel aristocratic world that Polk created in which the most desirable debutantes not only have the right connections and family, but also have a deep well of magical power (because this means they can breed powerful sorcerer sons). Women, however, are not allowed to train in the magical arts and are only allowed to dabble in charms and have their power contained as soon as they are able to have children. But Beatrice is doing everything she can to fight this conforming, suffocating path. She wants to be able to train and become the highest level of magician, however, her Father has pinned the hopes and dreams of keeping their family from the brink of disaster on her having a successful Season. Now, Beatrice must figure out what path to choose as either way she will have to sacrifice something of herself.

I have mixed feelings about this book. You know I love some good world-building. Magic is just part of the world, but to do higher magic, they have to have a specific grimoire. Beatrice loves magic, but once she's married, she has to wear a collar that prevents her from doing magic so her unborn child aren't born possessed, so it's a choice between magic, which she loves, and an advantageous marriage, which would save her family, who is in debt. The instant love story is eye rolling as always, but it's to be expected. It's a good story.

This book was a great book to pass the time. Although I was not wowed I really loved the elements of magic and intrigue with which the characters had. I really think if this book were longer and had time to develop more I would be rating this higher. I look forward to C L Polk's next work.

Very slow to start! Slower than the authors other works in my opinion. I really enjoyed the story once it got going though. The relationships were all so central to the plot in a way that I think carried the story. I like the magical system, but would have liked it fleshed out a little bit more because the solution does seem to be one that only applies to the upper classes which holds more problems. The spirit was so much fun!

Unique fantasy set in Regency England where women are forced to wear a collar to suppress their magic and bear and raise healthy children. Beatrice wants to use her magic, and not be forced into marriage and having babies. This is a young adult book but I thoroughly enjoyed it and wish I read it earlier to vote for the Library list. Thanks to Net Galley for the opportunity to read the ARC.

It is truly sad how easily believable such a misogynistic world is, and infuriating to see how women are prized entirely for the uterus and it’s expulsions. I did appreciate the heroine’s difficult choice between love and magic, something which women often have to deal with (albeit in more mundane ways). Never before have I been so enraged and enraptured by a book.

Beatrice wants to be a magician, but in Chasland, women don't get that choice. Besides, Beatrice must marry in order to keep her financially ruined family afloat. Think Bridgerton meets Dragon Age's mage towers.

I immensely enjoyed this book. The regency-esque setting was fun and gave me plenty of Bridgerton vibes, but the characters and world were wide and diverse. I appreciate that the story follows Beatrice who is willing to fight for what she wants and the ending felt realistic while also being clever. Overall, a wonderful read about the power we all have to shape our destiny and what happens when women boost other women.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an eARC of The Midnight Bargain.
I enjoyed the writing style in this book, and I found it easy to read even when heavy topics such as sexism and body autonomy were being discussed.
The world-building was good, and I liked how the magic system was unique and fresh.
Definitely a suitable read for anyone who is a fan of fantasy, Bridgerton, and magic in general.
I will be buying a physical copy of this book!

The Midnight Bargain is a pretty fresh take on a world with magic, especially considering the independent nature of our main character Beatrice. While I enjoyed the premise, the writing style wasn't one that I connected to. It's very delicate and airy, and it pairs well with the historical setting. I'm also not a fan of instant love with no context, and we are quite literally thrown into Beatrice and Ianthe's relationship from the first chapter. Overall, I think this book is good for those looking for a more whimsical historical fiction.