Eventide is a prospective trilogy of dystopian Web Serial Novels by troper APieceofToast that take place in the Imperial Governorates of America. Every time an imperial prince turns eighteen, an Eventide is held: a Deadly Game for his hand in marriage, wherein one hundred girls are locked in a specially-made palace to engage in a battle of wits, charms, and murder.
This is not a battle meant meant for Evaline Lewis, who has a job, a crooked nose, and a boyfriend. She's learned to settle. Then she meets Prince Braxton, and gradually, she begins to question whether settling is enough for her...
...But this isn't just a story about Evaline.
See, the Imperial Governorates weren't formed on a whim - they were invaded by China, and subsequently "liberated" by Russia. The subsequent culture of the Empire fetishizes the culture of Tsarist Russia, and is becoming increasingly more oppressive as the public is terrified of both the leftover Chinese diaspora from the occupation period and any politics that could be considered communist. To give you a sense of how bad it's gotten, giving everyone an equal vote is considered unthinkably socialist.
These issues largely go over Evaline's head because they don't affect her directly, but that's what the Switching P.O.V. is for. The other main contestants are Nova Robinson, the daughter of the IGA's only Chinese-American governor; Sarai Torres, a twelve year old girl under Evaline's wing; Wren Zhao, a rebel plotting to kill the prince; Autumn Mikhailova, a Russian from the dirt-poor governorate of Yellowstone; and Reese Foster, an Alaskan survivalist skilled at murder but little else.
There are three parts to the series: Eventide works as a standalone novel, but Afterlight and Nightfall take place after a seventeen-year Time Skip.
The books provide examples of:
- Action Girl: Wren has been a member of the Order of the Old Victory since she was six years old, and so is an example of this.
- Aerith and Bob: Even excluding the Chinese and Russian names from the diaspora, names like Emily and Margaret are next to names like Nova and Promise.
- Author Appeal: The author is half-Chinese.
- Beneath the Mask: Damn near everyone.
- Nova is cheerful and confident, if a bit dim. She also accidentally ran over her little sister and then blamed it on Chinese protesters.
- Sarai upholds an image of being an innocent waif for the cameras, but is secretly resentful of Evaline - namely that she claims to have Sarai's best interests at heart, but completely ignores the antisemitism and racism that Sarai receives from the Eventide's viewers.
- Autumn projects herself as being a smooth seductress, and while she doesn't fail on that front, she's using the image to cope with being treated like a sex object from a very young age.
- Reese is a terrifyingly effective badass, but none of that gives her a sense of self worth, and she's so desperate for love that she tries to keep her boyfriend in her life by helping him rape Autumn.
- Bilingual Bonus: Plenty of untranslated Chinese and Russian appears in the text.
- Big Brother Instinct: Evaline is this to both her actual sister and Sarai.
- Averted big-time with Nova, who hit and killed her sister with a stolen car.
- Break the Cutie: The entire book to Sarai, watching dozens of people die over the course of the plot.
- Les Collaborateurs: Is Nova aware of the horrible things the IGA does to Chinese-Americans? Yes. Is that going to stop her from climbing its ranks? Absolutely not.
- Control Freak: Turns out to be Prince Braxton’s dealbreaking flaw, as the contestant pool gets smaller and smaller he begins to micromanage them more and more.
- Crazy Survivalist: Downplayed with Reese. Her fellow contestants think of her as eccentric at best and insane at worst, and the media coverage refers to her as “the savage,” but Reese’s internal monologue is one of the more cohesive and logical of them.
