Title: Rhapsodic

Series: The Bargainer #1

Author: Laura Thalassa

Callypso Lillis is a siren with a very big problem, one that stretches up her arm and far into her past. For the last seven years she’s been collecting a bracelet of black beads up her wrist, magical IOUs for favors she’s received. Only death or repayment will fulfill the obligations. Only then will the beads disappear.

Everyone knows that if you need a favor, you go to the Bargainer to make it happen. He’s a man who can get you anything you want… at a price. And everyone knows that sooner or later he always collects.

But for one of his clients, he’s never asked for repayment. Not until now. When Callie finds the fae king of the night in her room, a grin on his lips and a twinkle in his eye, she knows things are about to change. At first it’s just a chaste kiss—a single bead’s worth—and a promise for more.

For the Bargainer, it’s more than just a matter of rekindling an old romance. Something is happening in the Otherworld. Fae warriors are going missing one by one. Only the women are returned, each in a glass casket, a child clutched to their breast. And then there are the whispers among the slaves, whispers of an evil that’s been awoken.

If the Bargainer has any hope to save his people, he’ll need the help of the siren he spurned long ago. Only, his foe has a taste for exotic creatures, and Callie just happens to be one.

So this isn’t a review in the traditional sense. It basically is an info dump of my feelings, so know this before you read!

The start
Ok I love the Bargainer. He helps a girl, sets up her future, befriends her when she had no one. But it’s for a price. Their friendship ends, has to end and 7 years pass until he comes to collect.

The middle
‘How did you feel, leaving me? I ask. ‘Like my soul was ripped in two.’
Enough said. Still in love with him!
Oh and the Night King, his city in the Otherworld is called Somnia. Absolute perfection.

The Bargainers speech in chapter 23 is what really did it for me! I couldn’t put it here as I worry it would be a massive spoiler but oh my gawd. I could’ve cried! I’m going all sappy and that is so not me, The Bargainer has ruined me!!!!

The end
Oooo wow. I didn’t expect who was the baddie. And it was a crazy ride! ‘I’ll be at your side, till darkness dies.’