Even Though I Knew the End

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and, oh god, what a tragically doomed romance they share. the book is short, but helen's adoration for edith shines brightly, is never questioned. i love reading about a couple who is effortlessly comfortable with one another, yet loves each other with such consistent passion. their whole love story is painfully bittersweet. trigger + content warnings: a lot of mentions of homophobia, mention of conversion therapy, institutionalization, talk of loss of a loved one, mention of a car accident involving death, abduction, murder, gore, ritual killings, human sacrifice, a lot of blood depictions, self harm for blood for magic, possession, misogyny, brief mention of throwing up, gun violence involving cops, a lot of smoking + alcohol consumption. Even Though I Knew the End is Polk at the height of their considerable powers: romance, enchantment, tragedy, and courage to the bitter end.” —Elizabeth Bear Even Though I Knew the End is a 2022 fantasy novella by C. L. Polk. It was first published by Tor Books.

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. Readers who fell into recent Jazz Age urban fantasies...will love Polk's latest.” — Library Journal, starred review An exiled augur who sold her soul to save her brother’s life is offered one last job before eternity in hell… This is a must-read for those who like their queer fantasy with a little grit and a lot of soul (pun intended).” — Booklist, starred review

The flare of pride at my successful spell design dampened as I saw what the enchantment revealed. The crime scene was straight out of a nightmare. Blood painted the walls—not in obscene, frenzied splashes but in the cruel and deliberate lines of magical sigils. They covered the north and south walls, sprawling onto the asphalt to the east and west, and I comprehended some. But the rest? Essentially, the plot to this book is that there is a serial killer who needs stopping, and Helen has a shot at changing her (doomed) future if she catches the killer, plus she really wants to catch the killer anyway, and there are a ton of other things going on that will all make perfect sense if you have ever read a Raymond Chandler novel and are accustomed to mysteries where the mystery is only one part of the larger story. (Confession: I am a big Chandler fan even when the plots don’t make perfect sense.) (FYI – Polk does not suffer from Chandler’s occasional lapses in plot coherence.) (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, google ‘‘The Big Sleep’’ and ‘‘who killed the chauffeur.’’) But even as the moment I had dreamed of turned into a nightmare, the gears in my skull kept turning. Teddy wasn’t in this alley by chance. They’d been watching the scene all along. Not cops. Not robbers. High magicians, and that was worse. In 1941, Elena "Helen" Brandt is a private detective and augur in Chicago, who agrees to hunt a serial killer even though she knows that she will die in three days when her decade-old deal with the Devil comes due. Helen sold her soul to a demon to save Ted's life ten years ago, knowing that she would be damned to Hell for it but she decided it was worth it.

I love it so much. The writing is absolutely phenomenal and it fits the 1940s so perfectly. I was giggling at times with the funny nonchalant descriptions, cue “The space behind Mathilda’s eyes was for rent”. It was descriptive just the right amount, the action was so fluid, and the setting was nicely atmospheric. I love the way C.L. Polk expresses feelings and emotions with such directness. The characters were lovable, and I am desperately hoping and wishing for more Helen and Edith content. And Marlowe side story, I beg. Intuition still had its lips to my ear. I depressed the shutter button with the lens pointed in their direction before I grabbed air and gave a grin. “The scene’s clean, but a second look never hurt—Aw, hell.”Damn it. I’d been pinched, and it was my own fault. I had cast no wards at all. I wasn’t great with the invisibility glamour. I hadn’t even set up a trip line. I had been sloppy, and I deserved to get caught. I appreciate stories that erase homophobia and treat the queer experience as something commonplace and widely accepted. However, there is still room for books like Even Though I Knew the End, which remind us of a lifetime before ours, where living a queer life was not easy or even safe. The mention of these struggles puts into perspective how far we’ve come—and how far we still have to go. re-read: I liked this even more the second time. There's so much richness to this novella and when you know the end (lol), you can see how Polk lays the foundation for all the revelations to come. This is an excellent novella. 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.

Geloy Concepcion Things You Wanted to Say But Never Did: A Photographic Journal to Process Your FeelingsMy heart thumped in my chest like it had to carry the whole band playing in my veins. Ted. My little brother, not so little now, standing right there and—his expression was hewn from ice.

They weren’t Greek to me; I could read that. These marks reminded me of astrological glyphs, of hermetic seals, but I could read those, too. They looked familiar. But I didn’t know them, and I couldn’t put my finger on where I had seen them before. Lastly, if you’re an audiobook person, I highly recommend it. Narrator January LaVoy was a delight. She hit every voice, every accent, every kernel of subtext perfectly. Usually I listen to audiobooks while doing other activities, but she made it hard to concentrate on anything else. It’s paced well, giving just enough of this world without bogging down into unnecessary detail, with very monochrome shrouded-in-cigarette-smoke feel, it reads easily. And even if you can guess where it’s headed pretty early on, it doesn’t detract from overall enjoyment. This Even Though I Knew the End book review jumps into the dark and wonderful world of Helen Brandt, a magical private investigator who sold her soul to a demon in exchange for her brother’s life. Many thanks to Tor Publishing and Raincoast Books for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

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