Winner of the Nebula Award!
A World Fantasy Award Finalist!
A Locus Award Finalist!
An Ignyte Award Finalist!
A New York Times Best Romance!
An NPR Best Speculative Fiction Book!
“Eerie, sharp, and fiercely bittersweet.” —The New York Times
“Noir and fantasy often seem to go together, but those two elements seldom uplift each other quite as well as they do in Even Though I Knew the End” —The Washington Post
“Bracing as a slug of bourbon, with a twist of pain on the drop—or is that hope? Polk’s back with a cold-eyed winner.” —Max Gladstone, New York Times bestselling co-author of This Is How You Lose the Time War
“Stylish supernatural noir with a heart and a thrumming pulse. I devoured it.” —Laini Taylor, New York Times bestselling author
“This is a must-read for those who like their queer fantasy with a little grit and a lot of soul (pun intended).” —Booklist, starred review
“Even Though I Knew the End rockets along from the very first page, with the details of author C.L. Polk’s alternate Chicago revealing themselves exactly when required.” —BookPage, starred review
“Powerful, emotional, stylish and smart, Polk proves themself yet again to be a talent not to be ignored.” —Locus
“Even Though I Knew the End is Polk at the height of their considerable powers: romance, enchantment, tragedy, and courage to the bitter end.” —Elizabeth Bear
“Readers who fell into recent Jazz Age urban fantasies...will love Polk's latest.” —Library Journal, starred review
“C.L. Polk twists the hardboiled detective subgenre into something new and fresh and enticingly queer. …[Even Though I Knew the End is] a thrilling, charming novella.” —Reactor
“Vivid and charming with a touch of noir edge, but way more heart.” —Rebecca Roanhorse
“A layered exploration of love and power with genuine emotional stakes and a soaring, perfectly bittersweet payoff. It’s another winner.” —Publishers Weekly
★ 09/01/2022
In Polk's (Soulstar) alternate-history Jazz Age Chicago, where angels live among the godly and demons stalk the streets, Helen Brandt is a woman who sold her soul to save her brother. She has one last chance to get it back and spend the rest of her days with the woman she loves. She thinks her task is to figure out which demon is poaching on another's Chicago turf. But demons lie—and so, as Helen discovers, do angels. This bittersweet urban fantasy romance wraps its tale of love and inevitable loss in a desperate search for a serial killer that begins as a murder mystery and then grows wings—and tentacles. Polk's world, where angels answer the prayers of the faithful while demons prey on the fallen, turns standard concepts of good and evil on their heads as the heroine learns that her world is not what she thought it was. VERDICT Readers who fell into recent Jazz Age urban fantasies such as Desideria Mesa's Bindle Punk Bruja and fans of time-travel or fantasy romances with tragic endings, like Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife, will love Polk's latest.—Marlene Harris
