The Rose Bargain

Olive is a redhead from the country who is more innocent than the other debutantes. She is a “shy little thing” (45) with a “soft heart,” and she loves to bake. Hoping to win a husband with a beautiful smile, she bargains with Queen Mor for perfect teeth in exchange for losing all of her fingernails, and for her, the price of the bargain proves to be an asset, as she doesn’t have to worry about getting dough under her nails.

Olive is afraid of the dark and fails miserably at the hedge maze challenge. This loss motivates her to lie to the other debutantes and unfairly seize first place in a later trial. She does this because she believes that she has fallen in love with Bram “at first sight” (200); she also dreams of being a princess. In the end, when Bram’s true, malicious nature is revealed, Olive aligns with the other debutantes and follows Ivy’s leadership.

Emmy is more worldly than Olive. Her grandparents told her about life in Kyoto, which isn’t ruled by the fae and has a very different culture. Emmy wants to travel to Kyoto and see other places in the world, so she isn’t interested in marriage or in managing a household. She wants to become “a painter, or a pirate, or a poet” (156). However, she enters the contest for Bram in order to please her father.

Emmy bargains with Mor to gain painting talent in exchange for never being able to taste candy or other sweets. Like Olive, Emmy is unbothered by the cost of her bargain because she doesn’t like sweets. Emmy has black hair and reads tarot cards. For herself, she repeatedly pulls the world card, which indicates “that [she] can have everything [she wants], if only [she’s] brave enough to take it” (157).

Marion is the prettiest and richest of the debutantes. Their father is from Ghana, where most people dislike Mor. He emigrated to England, changed his last name from Agyapong to Thorne, and bargained with Mor to gain fabric and a sewing machine. He used these supplies to become financially successful in the West End shopping district. Marion bargains with the queen for writing talent in exchange for the loss of her happiest memory, which the narrative later reveals to be her first romantic meeting with Faith, another debutante.

Marion plans to lose the contest because she is a lesbian and never wants to marry a man. At age 15, Marion experienced her first kiss with a girl. During the competition, Marion and Faith kiss and fall in love. Faith tells Marion about the first time they met, which was the memory that Marion lost in her bargain. Faith loves Marion because she “is all practicality” (312). Mor is surprised by Marion’s lack of effort or interest in the contest and is mystified by Marion’s happy reaction to being told that she lost.

Before Lydia’s disappearance disgraced her family, Greer was Ivy’s best friend. After Lydia became a social outcast, Greer’s mother forced Greer to stop seeing Ivy and Lydia. Throughout her life, Greer has been psychologically and physically abused by her mother. She is not interested in marrying Bram, but her mother forces her to enter the contest. Furthermore, her mother brainwashes Greer into thinking that she had to bargain for a prettier face. In exchange, Greer loses the ability to turn left, which stops her from winning the hedge maze challenge.

Greer wants to lose the contest because she loves her cook’s son, Joseph, who works as a stable boy. Being a spinster after the contest would give her the opportunity to have a liaison with a lower-class man. Greer and Ivy repair their friendship during the contest, but during one of Mor’s trials, Greer’s mother tells the queen about Greer’s connection with Joseph. After this confession, the newspapers report that Greer is dead, and Ivy discovers that Joseph is missing. The narrative eventually reveals that Mor killed Greer.

Faith is “exceptionally pretty, with parchment pale skin and masses of dark brown hair” (47), as well as blue eyes. She is the illegitimate child of Lord Carrington. Her mother was Carrington’s maid, and she raised Faith alone in a boarding house. Her father only claimed Faith as his daughter after she became a successful ballerina. He decided that she should get married instead of dancing for a living and consorting with Emmett. Faith and Emmett kissed sometimes, but Faith felt no romantic desire for him. Emmett rejects Faith when she asks him to marry her because he isn’t in love with her. After this, Emmett starts coaching her to win Bram’s marriage contest.

In Faith’s bargain, she gains the ability to tell when someone is lying in exchange for never being able to lie. This price doesn’t bother Faith, who is already a very honest person. After kissing Marion, Faith realizes that she is attracted to women. To confirm this, she then tries kissing Emmett and feels nothing. When Bram tries to kiss Faith, she bites him. Faith and Marion become a couple by the end of the novel. Although Faith’s relationship with Ivy is initially antagonistic, the two also form a fast friendship by the novel’s conclusion.

Lydia is Ivy’s sister and often serves as Ivy’s foil. She is prettier than Ivy, has “a reputation for her quick smile and quicker wit” (63), and was considered to be “perfect” before her bargain. The year before Ivy entered society, Lydia had her moment as a debutante and made a bargain with Mor to experience something new in exchange for not being able to remember the experience. That winter, Lydia went missing for eight days; upon her return, she could not remember where she was. She claimed to have run off with a lower-class man, and this scandal destroyed her family’s reputation.

The narrative eventually reveals that Lydia’s bargain led her to the Otherworld, where she married Bram. After returning to England, Lydia dreams about Bram and sketches him. When they meet again in England, she vomits on him. At the end of the novel, when Ivy’s marriage to Bram undoes all of Mor’s bargains, Lydia finally remembers her time in the Otherworld. However, Bram abducts Lydia and locks her in her old room in the Otherworld; her fate remains unresolved.

Emmett is Ivy’s love interest. He is Mor’s stepson: the human son of Prince Consort Edgar and Edgar’s first wife, who died. Edgar bargained with Mor to have Emmett legitimized as a prince; in exchange, Edgar was barred from speaking to Emmett ever again. As a result, Emmett became “so hungry for love [that] he couldn’t see the faults in who was offering it to him” (377). His father’s absence set him up to be used and deceived by Bram. Ivy describes Emmett as “silent and sullen, his brother’s foil” (216). At first, Emmett believes himself to be the bad boy of the family and sees Bram as being “better than good. He’s the best” (149).

However, Emmett wants to help all of the humans in England by undoing Mor’s original bargain, and he enlists Ivy’s help in this endeavor. To Ivy, Emmett is “so handsome it nearly knocks the breath from [her]” (14). After Ivy and Emmett have sex, she chooses to marry Bram for the sake of her family. After the wedding, Bram has Emmett imprisoned somewhere; he is missing at the end of the novel.

Queen Moryen, also known as Mor, is the main antagonist of The Rose Bargain. She is an immortal faerie who can only be defeated by the touch of iron. Mor has “onyx hair and eyes even blacker than that. Her skin was ghostly pale, her sharp features so beautiful that looking at her felt like a physical blow” (2). She left the Otherworld and came to England during the War of the Roses in 1471, and she has reigned as the queen of England ever since. She is known for making tricky magical bargains with humans for her own entertainment. In addition to striking these bargains, she establishes and maintains peace in England for 400 years.

Mor’s weakness is her fae son Bram, for like Emmett, she loves Bram “too much to see through his lies” (378). Not realizing that Bram has killed his fae father and seized the throne in the Otherworld, she allows Bram to come and live with her in England. At the end of the novel, Bram turns on his mother, undoing all of her bargains and capturing her with iron.

Bram is Mor’s “inhumanly beautiful” (36) fae son. Like his mother, Bram is always “perfectly unmussed” (257) and never shows signs of physical exertion or mental distress. He loves to play billiards and go hunting, and he is also a good dancer and kisser; most human women find him charming. He claims that his father exiled him from the Otherworld.

However, at the end of the novel, it is revealed that Bram killed his father and came to England to dethrone his mother. His ultimate plan is to reopen the gateway between the worlds so that the fae can freely trick and torture humans as they please. When Mor first allowed Lydia to visit the Otherworld, Bram seduced and married her. He tried to crown Lydia twice to unseat Mor, but it didn’t work because she was in the Otherworld. In the final chapters, Bram marries Ivy in England, which undoes all of the queen’s bargains, forces Lydia to return to the Otherworld, and ushers in a new era of fae dominance in England. Adept at hiding his true intentions, Bram is finally revealed as the novel’s ultimate antagonist.