ALC Review: The Courting of Bristol Keats by Mary E. Pearson
Release Date: 12 November 2024 (US), 14 November 2024 (UK)
Rating: 3/5
Narrator: Brittany Pressley
Book Boxes: Hopefully FairyLoot November Adult or Romantasy, OwlCrate Adult November
Synopsis: 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 king, 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.
Review
I wanted to love this book. I needed to love this book. I read Pearson’s Remnant Chronicles when they first published, and I liked them fine. Pearson’s gotten a lot of love lately from FairyLoot and there are a ton of different editions of TCoBK with spiffy edges at Waterstones, Barnes & Noble, and for sure one or two book boxes will feature it as well. Not counting the possible edition I think will come from FairyLoot, I preordered about five copies of this from different places. I may cancel most of them. I did not feel the romance in this book; there was no spark, no burn, and certainly no falling. One day, the two hated each other, and the next, they loved each other. The plot was a very long drag of a fae magic school akin to Hogwarts but with some combat-type training thrown in. I’m not sure what was going on with this book, but it was a hot mess for me.
We start Bristol’s journey with some intrigue, which drew me into the book fine enough. Bristol and her two sisters are trying to get by on their own after their father suddenly and unexpectedly dies not long after they lose their mother to another tragedy. The buildup and introduction are pretty good here. I grow attached to Bristol and her sisters well enough, and the mysterious letters from the “aunt” pique my curiosity. However, when Tyghan and his entourage come into the picture, my interest wanes considerably. Tyghan’s interactions with Bristol don’t have that spark of attraction that enemies-to-lovers need, and once the two meet, Bristol loses her muchness to me. The personality built up over the first few chapters completely goes out the window.
The magic system and world building leave much to be desired as well. While on the one hand, we don’t get a ton of info-dumping, but on the other, we don’t get immersion. Several aspects of the world get mentions in the beginning but only once or twice, and there’s a drop off after that. Several characters get their own little chapters in order to build intrigue, but there’s no reinforcement or context. It just feels like it’s dumped there for effect. We also have a focus on training for new recruits of humans with possible magic tendencies, but no preamble. Once Bristol gets to fairyland, she’s told the next day she starts training—and that’s it. For 560 pages, a lot of things feel like they have been written separately and just put together with no incorporation.
Pressley’s narration deftly portrayed Bristol. I was surprised at the choice in narrator; Pressely hasn’t done much fantasy, but I quite like the job done here, though one voice for so many different points of view was a bit hard to follow, even for me, and I read and listen to a lot of fantasy with multiple characters and intense world building.
Overall, 3/5 for the book and 4/5 for the narration. I’m not sure what exactly I was expecting. The Pearson books I’ve read before demonstrated a skill for writing romance I just don’t see or feel in Bristol Keats. I may go back and reread The Remnant Chronicles to see if I just had rose-colored glasses on. Man, I was really disappointed in this book.
Content warning: Language and explicit sexual content in Chapter 68, Last 5 minutes/few pages of Chapter 87, Chapter 106, End of Chapter 110 (if it doesn’t change after final publication).
My thanks to Macmillan Audio, Tor, Bramble, and Flatiron for the ALC, for which I willingly give my own, honest opinion.