Review: The Cruel Prince (The Folk of the Air #1) by Holly Black
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Series: The Folk of the Air #1
Author: Holly Black
Published January 2nd 2018 by Hot Key Books
Goodreads Synopsis
Of course I want to be like them. They’re beautiful as blades forged in some divine fire. They will live forever.
And Cardan is even more beautiful than the rest. I hate him more than all the others. I hate him so much that sometimes when I look at him, I can hardly breathe.
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.
Goodreads
Review
I've sort of been avoiding this series for so long because of how big the hype is around them all, and the fact that faerie books have been very hit-or-miss with me. However, I saw the first book in a charity shop for £1 and decided it was bound to happen eventually, so I bought it, and I am so glad that I did, and that my library had the other two books in the series in stock.
This series revolves around Jude, a human, who as a child saw her parents murdered, and she and her two sisters were taken by Madoc, a Faerie, who is the biological father of her eldest sister, Vivi, who is in fact a faerie too. Since then, Jude and her twin sister, Taryn, have been living with the fae, at school with them, but are very much aware of the fact that they aren't fae, and are always at risk. No more so than by the youngest, and most wicked, prince, Cardan, who seems to have something against Jude. The more she aggravates Cardan, the more Jude is at risk, and will she be able to survive until the coronation of the new king, especially when she is working as a spy too.
Now, this book did take a bit of getting into. Jude wasn't an easy character to love from the get go, being as brash as she is, but the more I read, and the more I saw how her actions where to protect those she loved in the main case, the more I appreciated her, and found myself enjoying the book much more. Her twin sister, Taryn, was lacklustre, at least to me, and there was something I didn't like about her, but I couldn't name what it was. Cardan was fantastic, on the surface he was cruel and wicked, but it seemed as if he had a sensitive side that we saw glancing through as the book progressed. His group of friends all had their appeals too. - Nicasia, a princess of the Undersea, loved power; Valerian, loved violence and hurting humans; Locke who was all about the drama - each of them liked to torment and play with Jude, but in very different ways, particularly Locke.
It was a slow start, plot wise, but as soon as we got into the nitty gritty of the abdication of the High King in favour of one of his six children, and Jude becoming a spy for one of the princes, I couldn't put the book down and was desperate to finish it. There were so many twists and turns, but all expertly done, that I couldn't believe how long I had put it off, but I am so glad I have now read it, and can see why people keep talking about this series. The ending blew me away, and I'm lucky I had a copy of The Wicked King ready to read, otherwise I don't know how I'd have coped.
Dates Read:
January 12-15, 2020Rating
4 Stars
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