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This lavish and decedent LGBTQ+ fantasy romance will leave fans of Divine Rivals and Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries utterly enchanted!
After running away from home, Sybil Clarion is eager to embrace all the freedom the Belle Époque city of Severon has to offer. Instead, she’s traded high-society soirées for empty pockets. At least she has Esme, the girl who offered Sybil a home, and if either of them dared, something more.
Ever since Esme Rimbaud brought Sybil back to her flat, the girls have been everything to each other—best friends, found family, and secret crushes. While Esme would rather spend the night tinkering with her clocks and snuggling her cats, Sybil craves excitement and needs money. She plans to get both by stealing the rare posters that crop up around town. With rent due, Esme agrees to accompany—and more importantly protect—Sybil.
When they’re caught selling a poster by none other than its subject, Maeve, the glamorous girl invites Sybil and Esme to The Absinthe Underground, the exclusive club she co-owns, and reveals herself to be a Green Faerie, trapped in this world. She wants to hire thieves for a daring heist in Fae that would set her free, and is willing to pay enough that Sybil and Esme never have to worry about rent again. It’s too good of an offer to pass up, even if Maeve’s tragic story doesn’t quite add up, and the secrets could jeopardize everything the girls have so carefully built.
Jamie Pacton, author of The Vermilion Emporium, dazzles in this whimsical and daring romantic fantasy. Fans of Fae lore, slow-burn sapphic pining, and decadently magical worlds will find The Absinthe Underground as ensorcelling as a fairy delight.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
February 6, 2024 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780593824337
- File size: 242957 KB
- Duration: 08:26:09
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Starred review from November 13, 2023
Seventeen-year-old Sybil Clarion makes a living stealing highly collectable artistic posters used for advertising around the Belle Époque–inspired city of Severon, where she lives with her roommate and best friend Esme Rimbaud. When she swipes an ad for the popular cabaret, Absinthe Underground, the establishment’s owner, elegant and charismatic Maeve, offers Sybil and Esme a lucrative job. All they have to do is use the magical key that Sybil inherited from her late Fae mother to sneak into the Fae realm, infiltrate Fae Queen Mab’s palace, and steal the crown jewels. In return, Maeve will set them up financially, allowing them to pursue Esme’s Plan for a Good Life, which involves living together in a small seaside cottage overrun by cats. The heist proves much more complicated than expected, however, especially when Sybil’s long-lost brother Lucien gets involved. In this haunting tale, set in the world of Vermilion Emporium, Pacton weaves a romantic and thrilling story of ambition, magic, and peril. Sybil and Esme’s chemistry is palpable, and Pacton’s lush portrayal of Severon as a city filled with art and beauty reminiscent of fin de siècle Paris adds additional layers of enchantment and appeal to the setting. Protagonists read as white. Ages 14–up. Agent: Kate Testerman, KT Literary.
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