I will be honest and say that I’m not sure how I feel about this novel. On the one hand it was entertaining but on the other it was incredibly long. The major mystery was solved and the villain was dispatched and yet there was still another 100 pages left in the book. Bryce is a half human half fae who likes to party. Her best friend, Dannika who is a Wolf Shifter is often her partner in crime when they go out. Tragedy strikes when Dannika and her pack are brutally murdered and it sends Bryce into a deep depression. She doesn’t start to come out of it until she is given the opportunity to help with the investigation. She is paired with Hunt a fallen angel slave who has no choice but do help in hope of winning his freedom back. It’s a pretty decent murder mystery as they follow the clues to what happen to Dannika and how it ties in to another crime as well. Bryce and Hunt are both fun characters and have a love of fun dialogue between the two of them. For fans of Sarah J Maas books, I think will enjoy this one too. It has a lot of the same hallmarks, witting dialogue filled with imaginative characters and magic. The one issue I have is the length of the novel. As I alluded to in the beginning, it had a really nice ending that wrapped up the mystery and dealt with the bad guy but there was still a 100 pages left to read. I understand that events in the last pages were crucial to character development but it could have been added to the next book or at least edited it down. This book didn’t need to have so much in it. It would have been okay to spread things out a little more instead of having it all in one. Let’s hope the next book is little bit more economical with it’s story.
I feel like singing “Hello Dolly” except it is “Hello Holly” because she is back to where she belongs. No one writes about Fairies the way that Holly does. From the Spiderwick Chronicles to Modern Faerie Tales to Darkest Part of the Forest, her stories are a mixture of faerie lore with modern twists and not one is the same. The Cruel Prince is a new spin on the changeling story. Instead of a fairy leaving one of their off spring with humans to replace their own babies, we have twins Jude and Taryn who are stolen from their home after Madoc kills their parents. You see, Madoc is the general to the High King in Faerie and has an odd sense of honor. He married their mother and well she escaped, taking their baby, Vivi, with her to the Human world. Ten years later he finds her married to another and in a fit of rage kills both of them and then out of duty he takes all the kids back to Faerie and raises them as his own. Jude and Taryn were seven when they come to live and Faerie and have come to think about it as home despite living with their parents murderer. There are only two ways humans can join the court. They can either marry their way in or earn their way by becoming a knight. Taryn wants to the former and Jude the latter. In Jude’s quest to become a Knight she battles against the cruel and spoiled Prince Cardan and his viscous friends. Like any kid who has ever been bullied, you come to a point where you can no longer just sit by and let things happen and start fighting back. Jude is given the opportunity to prove herself to Cardan’s brother, Dain, who is expected to be named King by becoming one of his spies but this is Faerie and things don’t go the way you expect. The coronation didn’t go as planned, people revealed themselves to be not to who she thought them to be. Despite all the betrayals and double crosses, Jude takes the opportunity to make her own power play. I love Jude. She is smart and brave. Being a human growing up in Faerie is fraught with challenges but she has found ways to turn those disadvantages to her advantage and outsmarts them all. That being said, the real conflict as the series is going to be if she able to deliver on all the the promises she’s made. Will her allies continue to support her? And will Cardan and her ever hook up? Fans of Black’s Modern Faerie Tales trilogy will love the surprise cameos from Roiben and Kaye. This is a great start to another classic Holly black faerie tale.
