68 pages • 2 hours read
The Rose Bargain
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Prologue-Chapter 7Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: Both the source text and this guide include depictions of physical abuse, emotional abuse, illness, death, graphic violence, and sexually explicit scenes.
Prologue Summary: “1471: The War of the Roses”
During the Battle of Barnet, Queen Moryen of the Others (a euphemism for faeries) intervenes in the fighting and makes a bargain with Edward IV, after which his opponent Henry VI dies on the battlefield. However, Edward IV is only king for one year and one minute before he drops dead. Queen Moryen, who is immortal, then becomes the queen of England, and her reign lasts for centuries.
Chapter 1 Summary: “London, February 1848”
Ivy Elizabeth Benton, the novel’s human protagonist, sneaks out to look for her sister, Lydia, who has been missing for eight days. Ivy gets lost around Hyde Park. While she searches, she thinks about the past, when their old cook, Mrs. Osbourne, used to read to her and Lydia about faeries. Mrs. Osbourne’s book inspires Ivy and Lydia to leave their pearl initial necklaces out as a gift for the Others one night, and the necklaces were gone by the next morning. Ivy, in her excitement, revealed the book to her mother, who made Osbourne burn it. Although Ivy’s necklace was never found, Lydia later revealed that she had hidden her own necklace; she then scolded Ivy and told her end her childlike obsession with the Others.
