Below Covent Garden lies the Untermarkt, where anything and everything has a price: a lover’s first blush, a month of honesty, a wisp of fortune. As a child, Deri was sold to one of the Market’s most powerful merchants. Now, after years of watchful servitude, Deri finally spots a chance to buy not only his freedom but also his place amongst the Market’s elite when he stumbles into the path of a runaway princess desperate to sell her royal destiny.
But news of the missing princess and her wayward destiny spreads. Royal enforcers and Master Merchants alike are after it. Outmanoeuvring them all would all be hard enough had Deri not just also met the love of his life, a young man called Owain, whose employers are using the Market for their own nefarious schemes. Deri soon finds that the price of selling the royal destiny, making a name for himself, and saving the man he loves is dear. The cost of it all might just change the destiny of London forever.
"True Love? That’s worth far more".
Trip Galey's A Market of Dreams and Destiny is a fun adventure set in an alternative England where Henry VIII turned to druidry to achieve his divorce, and Elizabeth I made a pact with Titania; where magic permeates every dealing, and the goblin market is the place where one can find anything, ruled by its own fay rules, but also a place where great injustice abounds.
The setting is intriguing, and yet the execution feels a little lacking; much more could have been explored. We follow the lives of two indentured servants as they navigate the market and face new threats, attempt to buy back their contracts, fight against the system, and fall in insta-love. Their relationship isn't fully explored, and this takes away from the shock that the big resolution should provoke.
Deri is a great protagonist, mischievous and very smart, able to male do with less than nothing and find new ways out of trouble. A thorough planner, it's a joy to watch him outmaneuver almost everyone in his quest to find the best solution with the least loss, even though his more altruistic plans are almost an afterthought. His ability to hear words when the London bells ring makes for an interesting power that could have been explored further.
The prose is phenomenal, lyrical and vivid and filled with great imagery, clever turns of phrase, and memorable characters populating the goblin market, from Deri's master who can speak with gold, to the cat that decides to take an interest in Deri's affairs, and many others. The goblin and fae, being genderless, are referred to exclusively with a neutral pronoun of the author's design.
A Market of Dreams and Destiny is a book that's filled with wonder.
✨ 3.5 stars
📚📚📚 IF YOU LOVE THIS, YOU MIGHT LIKE:
* Lava Red Feather Blue, by Molly Ringle
for: faerie, mischief
No comments:
Post a Comment