Midnight Never Come

by Marie Brennan Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki, Gabrielle de Cuir

Overview

ABOVE

The year is 1590. The City of London flourishes, the most brilliant jewel in the crown of Elizabeth I, Gloriana, the Virgin Queen.

BELOW

The Onyx Court is London's faerie shadow. Ruled by Invidiana, its heartless queen, it reflects and distorts the glory of the mortal court.

BETWEEN

Years ago, Elizabeth forged a pact with her faerie counterpart to secure both of their thrones. Now that alliance is in danger. Michael Deven, a rising star in Elizabeth's court, seeks the “hidden player” who has influenced mortal politics for so long. Lady Lune, a faerie out of favor, must infiltrate the mortal world to protect her vicious queen. Together this pair will uncover the secret of Invidiana's power-a secret that has the potential to shatter both realms.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Stunningly conceived and exquisitely achieved, this rich historical fantasy portrays the Elizabethan court 30 years into the reign of the Virgin Queen, often called Gloriana. Far below ground, her dark counterpart, heartless Invidiana, rules England's fae. Brennan (Warrior and Witch) pairs handsome young courtier Michael Deven, an aspiring agent under spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham, with bewitching fae Lune, who attempts to avoid Invidiana's wrath by infiltrating Walsingham's network in mortal guise. History and fantasy blend seamlessly as Deven and Lune tread their precarious tightropes between loyalty and betrayal. Brennan's myriad fantastical creations ring as true as her ear for Elizabethan and faerie dialogue. With intriguing flashbacks to historical events and a cast of deftly drawn characters both real and imagined, Brennan fleshes out the primal conflict of love and honor pitted against raging ambition and lust for power in a glittering age when mortals could well be such fools as to sell their souls forever. (June)

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Library Journal

Princess Elizabeth allies with Invidiana, aspiring fairy queen, a partnership that allows both to gain their thrones in parallel Englands. Thirty years later, Michael Devan seeks to rise to the rank of gentleman among the mortals. Resolved to regain the status she lost among the fairies for ceding too much to defeat the Spanish Armada, Lady Lune returns to the mortal court to spy on English spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham, who is also Devan's master. Lune takes the form of Anne Montrose, Devan's fiancée, while he searches for the "hidden player" taking a role in mortal politics. But will their love survive the deception and their conflicting duties to both realms? A deft blending of Elizabethan court intrigue and high fantasy, this debut novel will appeal to fans of Sarah Hoyt's Ill Met by Moonlight and All Night Awake. However, unlike Hoyt's works or Elizabeth Bear's forthcoming Elizabethan fantasies Ink and Steel(see review above) and Hell and Earth, which focus on Marlowe and Shakespeare, Brennan eschews making already-famous figures the protagonists. Instead, she foregrounds the fantasy aspect of alternate history by following original characters as they are pulled into great events and forced to grow into their difficult choices.
—Jackie Cassada

Kirkus Reviews

From Brennan (Warrior and Witch, 2006, etc.), a Tudor fantasy mingling real and imagined characters. Young soldier Michael Deven, bored with dull, routine service to Queen Elizabeth as a Gentlemen Pensioner, finds additional work with the queen's spymaster, Francis Walsingham. He meets and falls for Anne Montrose, a lady who serves at Hampton Court Palace. But then Anne declares that she cannot marry Deven and vanishes. Devastated, Deven tries to trace her background and whereabouts, but comes up short. Sickly Walsingham, meanwhile, suspecting the meddling of an unseen player in English politics, orders Deven to investigate. What neither Deven nor Walsingham know is that beneath Elizabeth's Hampton Court lies the Onyx Court, ruled by the faerie queen, Invidiana; and that a pact between Elizabeth and Invidiana has preserved England against Catholic usurpation for nigh 30 years. But even in the unforgiving world of the fae, Invidiana's ruthlessness and cruelty is extraordinary, and her subjects grasp that the pact benefits only Invidiana-whose chief concern is to protect her own dark secrets. Finally, after half the book has crawled by, Deven learns that Anne is really Lady Lune, an unwilling tool of the Onyx Court. What nobody knows is the source of Invidiana's power-certainly no ordinary fae magic is at work. Can Doctor John Dee, Elizabeth's fabled astrologer, help?A hardworking, sanitized Elizabethan backdrop frames a tortuously passive yarn populated by lifeless characters: Mediocre stuff at best.

From the Publisher

Brennan fleshes out the primal conflict of love and honor pitted against raging ambition and lust for power in a glittering age. - Publishers Weekly

Marie Brennan's lush and lovely tale will draw you in at once and not let you go until long after midnight. - Green Man Review

Product Details

BN ID:	2940176231373
Publisher:	Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Publication date:	05/18/2021
Series:	The Onyx Court Series , #1
Edition description:	Unabridged

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