I love how Holly Black doesn’t necessarily play by the rules. I see some calling her book The Cruel Prince a “dark” fantasy, and I would agree; people lie, people kill, people die. It gets messy. Wonderfully, deliciously messy.
A synopsis:
Jude was seven years old when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King.
To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences.
In doing so, she becomes embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, discovering her own capacity for bloodshed. But as civil war threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.
I thought The Cruel Prince was full of complex characters and enough twists and big reveals to keep it interesting. I sat and read it all in one day – I just did not want to wait to see what happened! I had no idea it was the first in a series, so I look forward to reading more.
Content warning: there is a triggering scene of a girl being compelled (by magic) to begin taking off her clothes. It’s disturbing. But I should also say that Black knows just how far to take it, but no further. Somehow even this scene does not feel gratuitous in the space of the story.
BOOK:30 