Cruel Prince meets Bridgerton meets the bachelor.

Set in what should be Victorian England, this book has an alternate-reality setting where the War of the Roses ended with a faery queen on the throne, and who has been ruling for the last 400 years. Every English subject gets to make one bargain with the queen, but the higher the bargain, the bigger the price. For example, someone who wants shinier hair might lose a toe. Ivy is supposed to make her bargain this year, but when she gets up in front of the queen, the queen announces that her son wants to marry this year, and the debutants can enter in a competition for his hand in marriage. The catch: anyone who loses is forbidden to marry someone else. And since these are women living in a time when they weren’t able to financially support themselves, there is a lot for these girls to lose. But some do enter the competition and most fall at the first hurdle, but Ivy and five other girls make it to the last round and now have to endure the queen’s sadistic games. If you like Cruel Prince, you will love this book, but just know, this book is more psychologically disturbing than Cruel Prince, which I think makes it worse (and so much more entertaining).

Ivy decides to join the competition because her sister had a bad debutante year, cannot remember what her bargain was or what happened to her, and ended up ruining her family. Ivy wants to help her family by becoming queen, because then no one would dare to shun her family. But everyone has their own reasons for wanting to win. I love that we get snippets from each character’s POV because it just adds to the tension and excitement, because I don’t just want Ivy to succeed, I want everyone to succeed. And then there’s Emmett, the human brother to the faery prince, Bram. He has his own reasons for wanting Ivy to succeed.

This book was fast-paced and packed full of emotions and twists. I might have guessed the big twist at the end, but it really didn’t matter because the journey itself was exciting enough to keep me reading. If you like a romantasy with a sinister undertone, you need this book in your life.