Tag: fae

Book Review: A Feather So Black, by Lyra Selene

Image belongs to Orbit Books.

Title: A Feather So Black
Author: Lyra Selene      
Genre:  Fantasy    
Rating:  5 out of 5

In a kingdom where magic has been lost, Fia is a rare changeling, left behind by the wicked Fair Folk when they stole the High Queen’s daughter and retreated behind the locked gates of Tír na nÓg.

Most despise Fia’s fae blood. But the queen raises her as a daughter and trains her to be a spy. Meanwhile, the real princess Eala is bound to Tír na nÓg, cursed to become a swan by day and only returning to her true form at night.

When a hidden gate to the realm is discovered, Fia is tasked by the queen to retrieve the princess and break her curse. But she doesn’t go with her is prince Rogan, Fia’s dearest childhood friend—and Eala’s betrothed.

As they journey through the forests of the Folk, where magic winds through the roots of the trees and beauty can be a deadly illusion, Fia’s mission is complicated by her feelings for the prince…and her unexpected attraction to the dark-hearted fae lord holding Eala captive. Irian might be more monster than man, but he seems to understand Fia in a way no one ever has.

Soon, Fia begins to question the truth of her mission. But time is running out to break her sister’s curse. And unraveling the secrets of the past might destroy everything she has come to love.

I loved this! I enjoyed Fia’s point-of-view so much:  how she feels like she never fits in and she doesn’t really understand a lot of things but keeps trying her best anyway. I never liked the queen or Eala at all, and I wish Fia had been more observant when it came to both of them.

Rogan was likable enough, although I frequently wanted to smack him. Irian, I liked him from the beginning. Who doesn’t like a dark, handsome, mysterious, powerful stranger? I enjoyed this world and the bits of history sprinkled in it, and the magic and cultures were fascinating to me. Can’t wait to read more!

Lyra Selene lives in New England. A Feather So Black is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Orbit Books in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review:  Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherland, by Heather Fawcett

Image belongs to Random House-Ballantine, Del Rey.

Title:  Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherland      
Author: Heather Fawcett    
Genre: Fantasy    
Rating:  4 out of 5

When mysterious faeries from other realms appear at her university, curmudgeonly professor Emily Wilde must uncover their secrets before it’s too late in this heartwarming, enchanting second installment of the Emily Wilde series.

Emily Wilde is a genius scholar of faerie folklore—she just wrote the world’s first comprehensive of encylopaedia of faeries. She’s learned many of the secrets of the Hidden Folk on her adventures . . . and also from her fellow scholar and former rival, Wendell Bambleby.

Because Bambleby is more than infuriatingly charming. He’s an exiled faerie king on the run from his murderous mother, and in search of a door back to his realm. So despite Emily’s feelings for Bambleby, she’s not ready to accept his proposal: Loving one of the Fair Folk comes with secrets and danger.

And she also has a new project to focus a map of the realms of faerie. While she is preparing her research, Bambleby lands her in trouble yet again, when assassins sent by Bambleby’s mother invade Cambridge. Now Bambleby and Emily are on another adventure, this time to the picturesque Austrian Alps, where Emily believes they may find the door to Bambley’s realm, and the key to freeing him from his family’s dark plans.

But with new relationships for the prickly Emily to navigate and dangerous Folk lurking in every forest and hollow, Emily must unravel the mysterious workings of faerie doors, and of her own heart.

This was a fun read! I enjoyed the first book, Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries, and this book just continued the fun. Emily felt like she’d loosened up a little bit and learned to be around people better, but she was still a bit awkward and fumbling. When she tends to overthink things, she gets herself in trouble, but her instincts are good. This was a fun adventure;

Heather Fawcett is a bestselling author who lives on Vancouver Island. Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherland is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Random House-Ballantine, Del Rey in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: Birth of the Fae: Locked Out of Heaven, by Danielle Orsino

birth of the fae
Image belongs to author.

Title:   Birth of the Fae: Locked Out of Heaven
Author: Danielle Orsino  
Genre:   Fantasy
Rating:   3.2 out of 5

The Fae have been abandoned by their Creator. Queen Aurora is crowned Queen of the Court of Light. King Jarvok is the King of the Court of Dark. Throughout the novel, We see Aurora and Jarvok each speaking with their councilmen about the abandonment of their Creator and what will result because of it.

King Jarvok proposes that Queen Aurora either stay in her palace, denounce the humans, and live, or meet him in battle and join Arceria in Oblivion. If she chooses the first option, the humans will no longer worship any member of the Court of Light, leaving all worshipping rituals for King Jarvok and the Court of Dark. She chooses war. During the war, the Weepers (fighters from the Court of Dark) have backed up the Light Fae to the banks of the Red Sea. There is nowhere left to go. Aurora hovers in a tornado made of water. She is giving the Fae a chance to escape. The water begins rising where the Weepers are standing. The Weepers are given an order to retreat. They march into their portal.

For the next few weeks, Aurora watches a group of Egyptian slaves from afar. One day, she sees Him, the Creator. She is upset that He answered to these humans, but not to the Fae. He had abandoned them and ignored Aurora even after she demanded His attention. It seems that He wants to be the humans’ one true God, taking away her livelihood and her kin’s mode of existence. Aurora channels all of her rage and hurt onto King Jarvok and the Court of Dark. She makes it her mission to destroy Jarvok and the Court of Dark.

I was intrigued by the synopsis of this novel. The fae were originally angels? I haven’t read that before, so I was interested to read this. However, I found the execution to be a bit erratic. There’s frequently no sense of time passing in the novel, yet in reality, thousands of years have passed. That’s jarring for the reader. To make that more pronounced, we’re thousands of years in the past–before Noah—but the characters use modern phrasings (“hired muscle”) and flip people off. This took me completely out of the story and made it impossible for me to believe in what was happening.

There are also frequent introductions of things/people, like the Illuminasqua, who appeared at convenient points without prior mention, as if the author either thought of a cool idea and randomly threw it in, or if she wrote herself into a corner and had to invent something to solve her dilemma. And the four bishops, who were barely mentioned before, are suddenly against the queen and doing things that don’t even makes sense. If the reader keeps tripping over mechanical issues in the writing, the story itself fares poorly. While I appreciate the unique premise of this story, it felt more like rough draft than a finished, polished novel.

Danielle Orsino is a nurse and a martial artist. Birth of the Fae: Locked Out of Heaven is her debut novel.

(Galley courtesy of the author/publicist in exchange for an honest review.)