Review: The Iron King (Iron Fae book 1) by Julie Kagawa
Meghan Chase has never fit in at her small-town high school, and now, on the eve of her 16th birthday, she discovers why. When her half brother is kidnapped, Meghan is drawn into a fantastical world she never imagined–the world of Faery, where anything you see may try to eat you, and Meghan is the daughter of the summer faery king. Now she will journey into the depths of Faery to face an unknown enemy . . . and beg the help of a winter prince who might as soon kill her as let her touch his icy heart. The Iron King is the first book in the Iron Fey series.
Julie Kagawa is the master of the Fae. The writing style she uses is incredibly addicting. You are clinging to each page, with your heart thumping willing the protagonist into safety. This is not your modern Tinkerbell. In Kagawa’s take on the Fae, they are cruel, true horrors and Meghan Chase is thrown right into the middle of their unseemly world.
Kagawa takes the myth that when humans begin to forget the Fey they cease to exist and turned it into a new age tell of the technological world biting out their world. I was entranced with her winter and summer courts and her iron Fae as well. The descriptions were so haunting you feel that you could almost reach out and touch one of the characters.
The main and side characters are fully fleshed out and have amazing traits. You get a feel for the personality of everyone inside the book. I bow to you Julie Kagawa. If I don’t get my hands on a copy of book three soon I might cease to exist myself! Look closer to the release date for my review of book two in the Iron Fae series The Iron Daughter.
If you like Melissa Marr, Lesley Livingston, or Maggie Stiefvater then grab a copy of The Iron King a cup of tea and enjoy.
A special thank you to @Irisheyz77 from Ticket to Anywhere for pushing me to give this read a go sooner rather than later.
Unsung YA
So Kelley from over at YAnnabe had an awesome idea, the most epic of awesome ideas I have heard this year so far. I was tripping over myself running to her comment box to ask if I could also participate.
The idea is to share your top five or ten or twenty favorite unsung YA. You need to be a LibraryThing user to participate.
After the kid lit award announcements on Monday, I daydreamed about how those authors’ lives will never be the same. Their winning books will forever more sport a shiny badge, reserving them a spot on crowded bookstore shelves. And other books the authors write? “By Newbery Medal winner Rebecca Stead” certainly won’t hurt sales.
But the flip side of all this is that many wonderful books get published every year without registering a ripple, let alone a splash. And in the YA world specifically, the vast majority of great books don’t approach anywhere NEAR the fervor of Twil—er, The-Series-That-Must-Not-Be-Named. The Cybils help spread the love a little. As does the Nerds Heart YA tourney.
So head on over to Kelly’s post to see her list and get more info.
My unsung YA:
Warrior Princess by Frewin Jones (whom you will see later in the list again). I loved this book for well the only thing I can call it is historical fantasy. I just made that up but still if it exists then please pretend I did not just make that up. Midievel Wales, princess, losing family to Saxons. Beautiful story and number one in a series of I think three. You can check out Frewin and his work by clicking that link and heading to his official site.
Dreaming Anastasia by Joy Preble. Anastasia survived the Romanov massacre that rocked Russia and ended the era of the Tsar. Since then she has been stuck in a hut with creepy evil witch Baba Yaga whose house runs around on chicken legs. It is up to Ethan who has remained 18 for all of these years to find the one who can save Anastasia. A decedent of the Romanov line, a young girl obsessed with her dreams of Anastasia and Russia. Can Ethan and the girl race against time to save Anastasia? This book had me immensely interested. Really this story has it all!
Bones of Faerie by Janni Lee Simner. Dystopian fans how did you miss this one? The apocalypse has come and gone. Faeries slipped through the veil into our world, destroyed most of our race and left behind magic that makes even the plants dangerous to be around. Liza lives in one of the smaller towns left. Day dreaming about a world long gone with cars and television. Her father rules the town and Liza with an iron fist. Any child born with the least bit of magic is ‘dealt with’. When Liza begins to realize she has some magic of her own she risks escape.
Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George. George is swiftly becoming one of my favorite authors. Her fairy tale re-telling of Grimm’s Twelve Dancing Princesses knocked my socks off. I am forever championing this book to those who enjoy a good re-telling. I always wanted more from this Grimm story as a child and George has filled in those gaps for me. I also loved her Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow, a revision on the Scandinavian Polar Bear Prince story.
What’s a girl to do when she realizes her boyfriend is a powerful faerie who has came to the mortal world only to guard her until she realizes and accepts she is the daughter of Oberon and Titania. A princess in the realm of faerie and medieval world parallel to our own. I love The Faerie Path and really anything from Frewin Jones. I loved the urban feel of London and the old feel of the Faerie world. I love the characters, especially the bookish sister Sancha.
So there you have it my unsung YA, what’s yours? Have you read any of these books?
Review: The Faerie Path Trilogy One by Frewin Jones
Frewin Jones takes you on a dangerous adventure in current times to an immortal world parallel to our own. The stories in this trilogy start by following Anita, a young girl living in North London as she nears her sixteenth birthday. Anita learns in a round about way she is an immortal princess of Faerie named Tania, her father and mother have been searching for her 500 years and Faerie has been locked in twilight waiting for her to return. Tania is torn between her two worlds her two families and the two men that love her.
Starting with the first book, I ordered them all three at the same time from Amazon because they seemed to be super interesting by reading the descriptions. I started book one and was up half the night reading. I have read Faerie books before, one is even reviewed here on the site but never have I read a Faerie book for adults or teens that was so well put together. Of course since it is a Faerie tale, there is a royal family and the girl in the story finds true love, and finds out she is a princess, but the way Jones puts it all together you don’t feel like you are reading Disney. The books are descriptive in a captivating way. Jones leaves no stone unturned, and leaves little to the imagination, his Immortal Realm belongs to him and he owns and describes it well. What I particularly fancy about these novels, is they are sewn up at the ends. I really dislike a book and abhor trilogies that leave open endings when the author has no intention of picking the story up. Jones delights my little OCD soul by sewing everything up nicely through-out the book and at the end of his novels.
The second book follows Tania through the search of her birth mother,and the betrayal of one of her six sisters, while trying to placate her mortal parents and figure out her own feelings about being of two worlds. You learn a lot in this book about Eden the mysterious sister who banned herself to a tower when the Queen disappeared from Faerie, to me this is my favorite of the three for that fact alone. Each of the six sisters has a magical gift and each of the six sisters is given an amazingly strong personality by Jones. I relate more to Sancha who has a gift related to reading and books, Zara has a gift for music that comes in handy more than you would think the author could incorporate, Cordelia can talk to animals, Hopie can heal and has a knowledge of herbs, Tania can step between the veil of the worlds, Rathina’s gift is only revealed in the last pages of the third novel so I won’t spoil that for you.
The third book describes a war in the realm. It does so in a way you are reminded of the Lord of the Rings but not in the long winded over exerted, need to have complete silence to keep up and comprehend it all Tolkien way. The sisters get to really show their warrior side and the descriptions of the violence and what is going on in Faerie are mind blowing. I was sad when I finished the last page of the last book, disappointed that there was no more to read. I know there is a fourth book coming but I have the understanding that it is not Tania’s family that will be followed. I recommend picking these books up and reading them. I know I immensely enjoyed reading them, I have a feeling because I haven’t read many male authors in this genre and the fact the book didn’t hover on the love story and wasn’t sappy at all had a big part to play in my love for the series.
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