TL;DR: This was okay, a bit clunky but okay.
Source: NetGalley, so many thanks to the publisher!
Plot: A sapphic romance mingled with a ‘save the sister/market’ plot. It was an interesting setup.
Characters: They were about as deep as you can assume you’d get from a standalone with a lot going on (not very).
Setting: The Goblin Market had some potential but I just couldn’t get excited for this setting ultimately.
Fantasy: A great start but it felt like the magic and setting just took a backseat.
Summary:
Being a changeling is hard enough, but Toast was older than most changeling children when her goblin parents stole her back from her human family and returned her to the harsh, bustling world of the Goblin Market, where anything from your fondest dream to your strongest talent can be bought—or sold.
Nearly a decade later, Toast has grudgingly cobbled together a life there as the Market’s guide for mortal visitors. But when the next arrival is her long-lost sister and the ancient beast whose magic the Market depends on disappears under strange circumstances, everything starts falling apart.
Now the Market itself is dying. With the Summer Court of noble fey plotting to claim the weakened Market for themselves, Toast, her friends, and an infuriatingly charming fey knight with an agenda of her own must negotiate their differences to make the trade of a lifetime and win back the Market’s future. To do so, Toast will have to decide what home–and the flawed community within–is ultimately worth.
Thoughts:
There was a lot of potential here, and I had some high hopes for this but ultimately I was disappointed with this one. It wasn’t bad by far, it was okay. However the writing felt clunky and everything was very tell and not show which made for a bland reading experience overall.
We have a lot going on here. Toast is surviving off the basically the commission of bargains within The Goblin Market. A young woman arrives seeking her sister, who Toast knows but cannot take her too or tell her about. At the same time a contingent of powerful fae arrive and Toast happens to save one. Then the spirit of the Market goes missing, and the young human is captured. Additionally we have some side characters and a romance that is repeatedly pointed out, and at this point it gets a little messy – I’m not going to lie. There are a lot of plots going on here and through it all we’re told a lot. Told about Toast’s relationship to everything and everyone. Told how we should probably feel. Told what others thing. And while that’s dandy for a younger audience, I was hoping this would lean more into the magical and adult and give us a bit more nuance or show us more than simply tell us.
Toast herself was interesting enough, I actually quite liked her story. Unfortunately she was the only character with good depth, and consequently I couldn’t fully connect with the others in the story. One good character won’t hold up an entire story of this type.
So ultimately this one was just okay. I was bored, and very ready to move on by the half way mark. I think we needed to be shown far more than we were told. And the magic of what should have been a very magical place was a bit lost for me. It could work for you though, I’d recommend a sample or check other reviews!
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