Oooh this was a fascinating read!
If you love queer fantasy and fancy some market politics, magic deals and secretive plots to fight for freedom, this one is definitely worth a go!

Adored the goblin market. Just the kind of setting I’m a complete sucker for. Whimsical, imaginative and creative. A place where you can buy or sell almost anything from ink and paper to the strength of ten men or even your destiny. The deals, merchant politics and indenture issues got more complex and intriguing as it went along.

I did start to find it a little heavy on the negotiating towards the end. The final session of reveals and deals involved A LOT of talking about magical contracts. However, the way it eventually all came together was very satisfying.

The romance that runs throughout was lovely and enjoyed that it didn’t completely dominate the plot. I’d maybe have liked a bit more development, particularly in the beginning. Their feelings seem to happen pretty quickly and due to Deri and Owain’s circumstances they don’t get that much time together. But, it was fairy-tale-esque which fit the story. Loved the hopeful epilogue that also left things a little open 😁

My highlights were Deri’s crafty negotiations, Bess the cat and the talking bells! 🔔

I am going to need this one for my collection. I absolutely fell in love with the whimsical theming and weaving of fantasy and fairy magic. I enjoyed the historical aspects in such that it was clearly a differing history, and took it for the fictional piece it was meant to be. I really enjoyed all the detailing. Well written, and I fell right into this fantasy world.

This was such a fun read. The fantastical world of the Under Market, a language spoken by bells, a labor rights movement <i>and</i> romance? A Market of Dreams and Destiny had all of it. I would do anything for Deri and Owain, assuming Deri didn’t already do it for them. The moment I finished I immediately wanted to go back again, just to appreciate the amount of detail on every page. If there is ever more to their story, I will happily throw myself right back in.

Very clever fantasy novel with a really sweet queer romance storyline. There were so many clever intricacies that the author included around language, specifically the language of the market, and the ways language can be twisted to create loopholes. I also thought the way the author used pronouns for the merchant was really smart! It transported you to the somewhat familiar environment of Victorian England but with a magical twist. And then finished off with a brilliantly thought-out ending.

Talk about Fairies and you have me. However while this book was a pretty good read, it read rather rough to me. I just had to stop and read passages a second time because it just didn’t flow well for me. It could be that it’s just me reading an ew author and it could be the text itself. At the end of it all, it was a good read and I’d try a second book from this author and hope for a smoother reading experience.

for fans of the night circus this is book for you.
it’s a set in a old world dickens style market and revolves around deri and his antics
a read to transport you to a fantasy world, the way the author describes things, smells, places and people makes the book

I am a sucker for everything related to Fairy Bargains, and this book was nothing but Fairy Bargains, piled high and deep, contracts and loopholes and intangible abstractions being traded for other abstract intangibles. The luster of hair, three minutes of life, the strength of ten men, prosthetics of living silver, a golden voice, the vigour of youth and childhood---everything is for sale, and everything can be purchased for a price in the Untermarket, the Goblin Market, below an alternate Victorian London where Queen Elizabeth made a very different bargain with the fairy queen, and built a very different city.

Deri, an indentured human servant to a powerful merchant in the Untermarket, is ambitious and energetic, and has amassed a tiny hoard of favors and trinkets, baubles he has bargained for in the spare minutes he can shave off the errands he runs for his mystrer. In the course of one of those errands, he helps an inexperienced youth navigate the market in return for three nights out on the town, and then in another bargain manages to lay his hands on the bottled destiny of the heir to the empire. The former he intends to serve merely as a frivolous entertainment; the latter he hopes to use to bargain his way out of his indentures early and set himself up as a merchant of the Untermarket in his own right; but both twine together and grow and expand, and Deri will need all his experience and knowledge of fairy bargains to come out on top.

This book is a wonderful ride, full of rhyming bells and true love and friendship and nascent labour unions, betrayals and intrigue and villainous skullduggery that merits the description 'Dickensian' in more than a few places, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

This was fun but also just okay. The world-building was ok, the high stakes was a good bit and the characters were enjoyable but the dialogue felt disjointed. The plot didn't deliver as much as I would have hoped either.

This world is so richly imagined. Most of my notes are some variation of “The world building, omg”; “goblin mid-wives!”: “DUDE, the WORLD BUILDING.” I’m a huge fan of a fantasy world that feels tangled and complex and messily real, and this book delivered!

Unfortunately, I didn’t feel that spark on a sentence level, which is obviously a very personal thing and differs for each reader, so don’t let this be a deterrent to check this one out! The voice was still really easy to sink into.