Antonia Bernardin

My 45th book of the year was Rhapsodic by Laura Thalassa, this one has been on my TBR for a while because it appears on a tonne of rec lists.

A summary attempt

This is story is set in the world where supernatural beings live side by side with humans, but keep a low profile and have their own police force.

The first time Cali calls the bargainer, she’s days away from her 16th birthday and she’s just accidentally killed her step-dad and abuser. He doesn’t make deals with minor’s but something about Cali makes him decide to take pity and give her a bargain without ties attached to it. He clears up the scene and gets her into an elite boarding school for supernaturals. When Cali gets a call from a detective months later, she summons the bargainer again and this time it costs her as a real deal, every deal adds a bead to a bracelet on her wrist, symbolising a favour she owes him the future.

Cali is traumatised, finding it hard to relate to her peers and completely alone, so out of desperation, she summons the bargainer again and begs him for a bargain in exchange for his company. This slowly starts to become a habit.

The story flashes between this past and the present, where the bargainer has returned to Cali’s life after a 7 year absence. Cali’s not exactly ready to forgive after he broke her heart 7 years ago, she now runs a successful PI business and has a shifter boyfriend. But if the bargainer wants to call in his favours, this is nothing she can do to resist it, his power literally compels her once he calls in the bargain. He is a magnetic force and all the feelings she felt as a teenager come rushing back, as he blows up her entire life.

My thoughts

I liked this book, the narrative style is really compelling and makes you want to keep reading (or listening in my case), as it constantly teases out what happened to break their friendship 7 years before in the flash backs, and their developing romantic one in the present and the mystery he uses her favours to help him solve.

However, I have a MAJOR bone to pick with the main character’s age at the point in the flash backs, even though the narrative makes it very clear that their friendship was entirely platonic back then. He also confesses later that he had feelings for her back then… the traumatised 16-17 year old that he resisted because he wanted to prove to her that not all men were like her step-father. Yep… there are just too many icky power dynamics at play, which they try to cover with the ‘fated mates’ excuse. He is an all powerful supernatural, immortal, a king, immune to her glamour powers, able to compel her magically and she was FIFTEEN when they met.

I found it really hard to get past and it ruined an otherwise very good slow burn romance. It was unnecessary, she could have been older at the point they met with minimal adjustments to the narrative.

I think I will still pick up the next book, as I think we are past the flashbacks that gave me the ick.