Fae and humans alike are returning to London for the Season, but the excitement is marred by the growing poverty rate among humans with low magical scores.
Tenacious Roger Barnes proposes a new rubric for testing magic to the Council, hoping to resolve the predicament for his fellow humans. But when he is paired with Wyndham Wrenwhistle, a dashing fae who has disliked him since childhood, the project seems destined to fail. Even after reaching a tentative truce, their fragile partnership crumbles due to malicious lies.
Adding to the disarray, a popular gossip column unexpectedly announces that Roger and Wyn are engaged. Obliged to go along with the falsehood to save their families from scandal, they are forced to reconcile their differences for the sake of the rubric — and for their impending marriage. As the project bleeds into their wedding plans, the pressure to flawlessly execute both mounts even higher.
Together, they have the chance to solve a crisis decades in the making — but they'll need more than magic to succeed.
One of this book's co-authors wrote the Meddle & Mend series, which I adored, so I snapped this book up when it went on sale for 99 cents. It's set in a similar universe as the Meddle & Mend series (Regency England but magical & queernorm as well as non-racist) but with the addition of a fae population probably around the same size as the human population. They coexist fairly well, but rarely intermarry. Magical ability is very important, and inheritance goes to the child with the highest magical score rather than going to the oldest son (oh yeah, the society is non-sexist too). Humans with low magical scores are usually ignored by suitors and passed over for jobs. Low-magic humans are sometimes kicked out to starve by their parents as soon as they reach adulthood. This is very sad and pretty jarring for an otherwise-cozy fantasy book. Roger is trying to change this by implementing a new scoring rubric so children are less likely to score low, but to me it's the society that needs to change. They should stop caring how people score on a hugely important magic test they take once at age twelve that determines the rest of their lives. Roger scored low because he was nervous, and to me the test and its grading are hugely unfair. It was kind of whiplash-y to read about such a prejudiced society and then have the rest of the book basically be like "anyhoo, on to the cute romance!!"
Roger is paired with former classmate Wyndham Wrenwhistle, a fae who also scored rather low on the fae magic test, which is supposed to be similar/analogous to the human test, hence why they have to work together. They don't like each other, mostly because Wyn is and has been a huge jerk to Roger, but Wyn's grandma (who is on the fae-human relations council with Roger's dad) makes him do it. It's obvious that she did that because she thinks Wyn's into Roger. They're trying to work on the rubric but keep clashing, and in their anger both write disparaging letters about the other to the gossip paper. The editor of the paper is like, you know what would be hilarious? and posts that the two are engaged. They of course visit the editor to demand they retract the engagement announcement, but they're like "no + deal with it + you two are cute together :)"
Since it's Regency England, the two dummies can't say they aren't engaged because Wyn made the huge mistake of gifting Roger a nice teapot since he only has one non-cracked one, and you can't bring gifts to boys you're not engaged to, the scandal!!! Also almost everyone is super into them being together because a fae-human marriage is So Good For Our Society since historically fae-human marriages were/kinda still are frowned upon. Imagine being forced to marry your childhood bully (sort of) because It Will Change Society For the Better. Yikes. Don't worry, they start falling in love for real!
I dislike the "it's okay when people set you up/force you to spend time together with someone because they think
you like each other/would be cute together and because they think it's
in your best interest" sentiment of this book. It also showed up in Wallace's latest book The Spellmaster of Tutting-on-Cress, where everyone kept trying to set up the heroine with this guy she obviously liked even though she explicitly asked them all to not do that and respect her wishes re: not being set up because it's cringey and embarrassing. The whole "it's for your own good! otherwise you'd be single forever!" excuses being used to ignore said wishes just felt gross. It's the lack of respect and ignoring of consent for me. π The lack of apology and/or realization that the setting-up was being pushed on people without their consent is very annoying to me. And the whole smug "see? I was right!" thing when the couples invariably ended up together used to justify it! Ugh. It's not cute or funny, and it smacks of amatonormativity. Not everyone needs to be paired up, and single people aren't tragic!
Anyway, I really enjoyed this book and found the romance to be very sweet. They're very gentle and kind to each other (even Wyn once he mellows out). Sarah Wallace is an insta-buy author for me, and I'll have to check out more of what S.O. Callahan has written.
Score: ★★★★ out of 5 stars
Spice score: πΆπΆ out of 5 chilies
Read in: October 24-25
From: B&N Nook
Tropes: forced proximity, betrothed against their will/we have to get engaged to avoid scandal, assigned engaged by gossip column (is that a trope?), fake dating (sort of), "we have to sell this relationship/act like we're in love", rivals to lovers, rivals to friends to lovers, childhood bully romance (sort of), everyone ships them, family/friends meddling, being meddled into a relationship, slow burn, height difference (smol & tol), I'll Take Care of You, socialite x academic, fashionista x academic, popular x nerd, flirty x flustered, whatever it's called when they knew each other since childhood and one or both of them kinda liked the other ever since then, the magic of love/love makes magic stronger or whatever
Representation: gay MMCs, demisexual MMC, nonbinary character who uses they/them pronouns, sapphic minor character, neurodivergent MC (both ADHD and autistic vibes imo), anxiety rep, Roger looks Hispanic to me but that might be due to his passing resemblance to Harvey Guillen, I think there's other side characters of color but the physical descriptions are a bit lacking, aesthetic attraction is mentioned
Trigger warnings: prejudice built into the unequal system that leads to othering & poverty, a prejudiced character is vocally negative about a human and fae marrying, mild stalking by an ex