omg. I’m so sorry i’m late with this, Keishon!

I’m hostessing a workshop over at romance divas about Steampunk, and forgot this post was due the same day. GAH!

However, I read my book. I LIKED my book.

It was Midnight Never Come by Marie Brennan, which is an alt-history account of Elizabeth’s reign.

Imagine, if you will, that Elizabeth made a deal with an evil Fae queen in order to gain her throne, and spent the next thirty years of her reign under the power of that pact.

The story follows Deven, a young man trying to find his place in the Queen’s Court, and Lune, a fairy recently ostracized from the Fae court of the Queen Invidiana.

I love this book. I’d give it a 4/5 stars/flowers/ribbons/hearts/whatevers, because I think the opening was a little slow, BUT! I’d reread it. A lot.

Mostly because the prose was omg-delicious. The flair and decadence of Elizabethan England was THERE, even for someone as unhistorically knowledgeable as myself. That sumptuousness, the political maneuvering…it was all so brilliantly laid out.

But even better than that, the parallels between Lune’s life and Devens (not to mention other characters throughout the story, who I will not name for the sake of spoilers). The villains are portrayed as truly villainous, even when they’re leant a little sympathy.

Elizabeth herself is painted as human, and I can’t help but think that was a conscious decision on the author, as it contrasted with the inhumanity of Invidiana.

Those compare-and-contrasts were joined by an ensemble cast of people and fae whose motives were often unclear to Lune and Deven, and plot twists I absolutely never saw coming just made the whole book an incredibleread.

The fact that Marie Brennan pulled in elements like the sword in the stone and made it part of her own mythology put me on board as her fangirl even more than the book Doppleganger by her, which I absolutely adored.

I do hope there is a lot more in the works from Ms. Brennan. I would love to see more historical fantasy from her. This was, seriously brilliant, and I was blown away, even while recognizing the elements that didn’t quite come off for me.