Title: Even Though I Knew the End
Author: C. L. Polk
Publisher: Tordotcom
Length: 133 Pages
Category: Historical Fantasy
Rating: 5 Stars
At a Glance: What would you do in the name of love, even though you knew the end? That’s the question C. L. Polk asks and answers in ways that define the emotion at both is simplest and most complex. This story is not simply a test of faith, it’s an act of courage. It’s love at both its most selfish and its most unselfish. It’s love at its most eternal and its most finite. It is love at its most unspoiled in an imperfect world.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurb: A magical detective dives into the affairs of Chicago’s divine monsters to secure a future with the love of her life. This sapphic period piece will dazzle anyone looking for mystery, intrigue, romance, magic, or all of the above.
An exiled augur who sold her soul to save her brother’s life is offered one last job before serving an eternity in hell. When she turns it down, her client sweetens the pot by offering up the one payment she can’t resist—the chance to have a future where she grows old with the woman she loves.
To succeed, she is given three days to track down the White City Vampire, Chicago’s most notorious serial killer. If she fails, only hell and heartbreak await.
Review: Set in the 1940s, and utterly rife with noirish overtones that add color and vibrancy to the story, C. L. Polk’s Even Though I Knew the End is a sublimely beautiful tale of the lengths one woman will go to for the sake of love.
I called to the devil, and the devil came to me.
Helen Brandt made a Faustian bargain nearly ten years ago—near enough that the end of that bargain is nigh, and the devil has come to collect. Or should have, but the devil has a bargain of their own to strike: if Helen catches the White City Vampire, she can win her soul back. The only problem is that Helen herself may be the next victim on the killer’s agenda.
Polk thrusts readers into an atmospheric tale of magic and ritual murder in which Helen comes up against her estranged brother, Ted, who considers her the enemy, and is doing her damndest to keep the love of her life, Edith Jarosky, safe. Helen and Edith both have their secrets from each other, though. Secrets that are integral to the investigation, not to mention to their future together. In fact, to their very survival.
What would you do in the name of love, even though you knew the end? That’s the question C. L. Polk asks and answers in ways that define the emotion at both is simplest and most complex. Polk also answers it in the most romantic of terms—for another moment, another hour, another day. This story is not simply a test of faith, it’s an act of courage. It’s love at both its most selfish and its most unselfish. It’s love at its most eternal and its most finite. It is love at its most unspoiled in an imperfect world.
As much as I loved this author’s Kingston Cycle series, Even Though I Knew the End is my favorite of their work yet.
You can buy Even Though I Knew the End here:
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