The Courting of Bristol Keats
A Novel
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
From New York Times bestselling author Mary E. Pearson comes a thrilling romantic fantasy full of dangerous fae, dark secrets, and addictive romance
After losing both their parents, Bristol Keats and her sisters struggle to stay afloat in their small, quiet town of Bowskeep. When Bristol begins to receive letters from an “aunt” she’s never heard of who promises she can help, she reluctantly agrees to meet—and discovers that everything she thought she knew about her family is a lie. Even her father might still be alive, not killed but kidnapped by terrifying creatures to a whole other realm—the one he is from.
Desperate to save her father and find the truth, Bristol journeys to a land of gods and fae and monsters. Pulled into a dangerous world of magic and intrigue, she makes a deadly bargain with the fae leader, Tyghan. But what she doesn't know is that he's the one who drove her parents to live a life on the run. And he is just as determined as she is to find her father—dead or alive.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Peterson (Vow of Thieves) underwhelms in this overly long, paint-by-numbers fae romantasy, the first in a duology. After a lifetime on the run from their parents' unknown enemies, Bristol Keats and her sisters made a home in Bowskeep, but maintaining their run-down house has left them impoverished. With their mother and father dead, they have no hope for the future and no answers about their past, until a mysterious letter offers Bristol a rare piece of art belonging to her great-aunt. This, however, is actually a fae trick to make Bristol serve Tyghan, king of the Danu Nation. Tyghan and his court believe Bristol is bloodmarked and has the power "to navigate between worlds, to create portals, and to close them," a skill they need to defend themselves against King Kormick, whose own bloodmarked monster has supplied him with an inexhaustible army. Bristol agrees to serve Tyghan after learning that her father isn't dead after all—he's been taken by trows, a type of wild fairy. Unfortunately, the secrets Bristol discovers about her parentage puts her blossoming relationship with Tyghan into an unsettling context and sours the romance, which plays out as a checklist of tired romantasy tropes. There's little to make this stand out.