Review: The Fairy Bargains of Prospect Hill by Rowenna Miller

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Title: The Fairy Bargains of Prospect Hill

Author: Rowenna MIller

Publisher: Orbit

Published: March 28, 2023

Pages: 478

Format: ARC via Orbit, Thank you!

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Goodreads Blurb

“On Prospect Hill, you can get nearly anything you want from the Fae—if you know how to ask and if you can pay the price.

There is no magic on Prospect Hill—or anywhere else, for that matter. But just on the other side of the veil is the world of the Fae, and all their magic. Generations ago, the first farmers on Prospect Hill learned to bargain small trades to make their lives a little easier—a bit of glass to find something lost, a cup of milk for better layers in the chicken coop.

Much of that old wisdom has been lost as the riverboats gave way to the rail lines and the farmers took work at the copper works and the cotton mill. Alaine Fairborn’s family, however, was always superstitious, and she still hums the rhymes to find her lost shoe and ensure dry weather on her sister Delphine’s wedding day.

But when Delphine confides her new husband is not the man she thought he was, Alaine will stop at nothing to help her sister escape his abuse. Small bargains buy them time, but the progress of locomotives and factories hasn’t given way to equitable laws for women. A major bargain is needed, but the price for sweeping change may be more than they’re willing to pay.”

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My Review

This was a tough one for me because I adore stories about the Fae. There was a lot of promise but the delivery didn’t quite work out.

We have this family who is original to the land. They have made bargains with fairies to help make things a little easier around the farm. With that being said, they have been continuously warned not to talk to the Fae or make bargains that come with a steep price. Don’t eat their food, be very careful how you word your bargains, and etc. This story mainly focuses on two sisters, Alaine and Delphine. These two could not be more opposite. While, Alaine is happy taking over the family farm, Delphine wants something more and bigger. They both do small fairy bargains to get ahead in life and when things get overwhelming they start to up the bargains.

One of the most frustrating things about this book is that you can see everything unfold from the beginning. There’s so many warnings and so many obvious moments that these two sisters ignore. It’s always just “one more time” or “I know what I’m doing.” Clearly, you never know what you are doing when it comes to the Fae. There’s so many bad decisions right after the other and it’s so hard to connect to either sister. Most of this book was just pure frustration.

The first 55% of this book is so slow. The pacing is completely off on this one. It made it difficult to really want to dive into the story. I found myself almost wanting to DNF it a couple of times. I love stories about the Fae and the bargains were so interesting. I really enjoyed learning about that aspect. Also, there’s a point that we are in the Fae world and that was really interesting too.

Overall, I did not enjoy this one as much as I was hoping. I am so grateful to Jordyn and Julie for buddy reading this with me. We all kind of came to the same conclusions. There are many things about this book that had so much potential but it just fell short. If you enjoy reading about characters that will constantly frustrate you and make every bad decision then this is the one for you.

Many thanks to Orbit for an ARC to review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.