Review: Ironside

Title: Ironside

Author: Holly Black

Goodreads Summary:

In the realm of Faerie, the time has come for Roiben’s coronation. Uneasy in the midst of the malevolent Unseelie Court, pixie Kaye is sure of only one thing — her love for Roiben. But when Kaye, drunk on faerie wine, declares herself to Roiben, he sends her on a seemingly impossible quest. Now Kaye can’t see or speak to Roiben unless she can find the one thing she knows doesn’t exist: a faerie who can tell a lie.

Miserable and convinced she belongs nowhere, Kaye decides to tell her mother the truth — that she is a changeling left in place of the human daughter stolen long ago. Her mother’s shock and horror sends Kaye back to the world of Faerie to find her human counterpart and return her to Ironside. But once back in the faerie courts, Kaye finds herself a pawn in the games of Silarial, queen of the Seelie Court. Silarial wants Roiben’s throne, and she will use Kaye, and any means necessary, to get it. In this game of wits and weapons, can a pixie outplay a queen?

My Review:

I loved this one just as much as Tithe! I like how we get a sort of collision with Luis from book two and get to learn more about him. Also, loved him and Corny!

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Kaye has really grown as a character. She is strong and brave and fierce, and I love her, too! I wish there would have been more of Roiben, but the scenes that he was in were awesome!

Again, Holly Black has created such a magnificent world where character’s feel real because they may not be a hundred percent likeable yet are! Highly recommend this series.

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Review: Valiant

Title: Valiant

Author: Holly Black

Goodreads Summary:

When seventeen-year-old Valerie runs away to New York City, she’s trying to escape a life that has utterly betrayed her. Sporting a new identity, she takes up with a gang of squatters who live in the city’s labyrinthine subway system.

But there’s something eerily beguiling about Val’s new friends. And when one talks Val into tracking down the lair of a mysterious creature with whom they are all involved, Val finds herself torn between her newfound affection for an honorable monster and her fear of what her new friends are becoming.

My Review:

So I didn’t like this one as much as the first book, but I still loved it! I liked that the characters aren’t your typical characters. Like you may not really like them, but you still totally do!

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Also, can I just say the troll love was freaking awesome! I liked that Holly Black made the character fall for a troll and not a “hot” troll either! Although, I’m sure he’s super adorable because his personality was lovely!

I felt for Valerie a lot, and yes she did some stupid things, yet I still wanted to give her a big hug! This world has sucked me in and I can’t wait to start book three right away!!

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Review: The Darkest Part of the Forest

Title: The Darkest Part of the Forest

Author: Holly Black

Date of Publication: January 13th, 2015

Goodreads Summary:

Children can have a cruel, absolute sense of justice. Children can kill a monster and feel quite proud of themselves. A girl can look at her brother and believe they’re destined to be a knight and a bard who battle evil. She can believe she’s found the thing she’s been made for.

Hazel lives with her brother, Ben, in the strange town of Fairfold where humans and fae exist side by side. The faeries’ seemingly harmless magic attracts tourists, but Hazel knows how dangerous they can be, and she knows how to stop them. Or she did, once.

At the center of it all, there is a glass coffin in the woods. It rests right on the ground and in it sleeps a boy with horns on his head and ears as pointed as knives. Hazel and Ben were both in love with him as children. The boy has slept there for generations, never waking.

Until one day, he does…

As the world turns upside down, Hazel tries to remember her years pretending to be a knight. But swept up in new love, shifting loyalties, and the fresh sting of betrayal, will it be enough?

My Review:

At first it took me a minute to get into this, and I wasn’t sure… But! Once I was in, I was in! Also, can I just say that I totally envisioned the Horned Boy looking like Daniel Radcliffe in Horns!

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Loved Hazel and Ben! Teens acting like teens is always a plus! Can I also just say I want to carry around Jack in my pocket. He was so adorable and I felt for the guy! The book definitely is NOT creepy, but it’s hard for me to find anything dark or creepy in general when you’ve been watching horror stuff since like age 2. However, I appreciated all the lovely atmospheric visualization! I found it more intriguing and beautiful vs haunting!

So far I’ve only read this and The Cruel Prince, and I must say that I liked this one more! I’ll be reading Tithe here soon, so I’ll get to see how that one is. I know I’m behind, but Holly Black is moving up on my fave author list!

Review: Tithe

Title: Tithe

Author: Holly Black

Goodreads Summary:

Welcome to the realm of very scary faeries!

Sixteen-year-old Kaye is a modern nomad. Fierce and independent, she travels from city to city with her mother’s rock band until an ominous attack forces Kaye back to her childhood home. There, amid the industrial, blue-collar New Jersey backdrop, Kaye soon finds herself an unwilling pawn in an ancient power struggle between two rival faerie kingdoms – a struggle that could very well mean her death.

My Review:

I’m mad at myself for not reading this book a long time ago! It was so good and reminded me of when I was in high school before cell phones and social media consumed our entire lives!

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I liked Kaye! I felt she was relatable. Yes, she may be a high school drop out, drink, curse and smoke, but not every teen in the world is a perfect angel. And Roiben! Loved, loved, loved him!!!

This world that Holly Black has created is amazing! I love her writing and her descriptions and that everything isn’t perfect but can be! Can’t wait to read the next one!

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Review: The Lost Sisters

Title: The Lost Sisters

Author: Holly Black

Date of Publication: October 2nd, 2018

Goodreads Summary:

Sometimes the difference between a love story and a horror story is where the ending comes . . . 

While Jude fought for power in the Court of Elfhame against the cruel Prince Cardan, her sister Taryn began to fall in love with the trickster, Locke.

Half-apology and half-explanation, it turns out that Taryn has some secrets of her own to reveal.

My Review:

This was a pretty good read to get into Taryn’s head about things. However, I still don’t like her. But I mean, you don’t really have to to like the book.

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I also was not a fan of the second person POV—it’s always an odd feeling. Like as soon as the word “you” is used, I look down at myself, and point to my chest like “who, me?”

But I will say I seriously love Holly’s writing, and this was a great novella to get a little more of the world in between the books, along with a different character’s POV! Definitely recommend if you love the series!

 

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Review: Kin (The Good Neighbors)

Title: Kin (The Good Neighbors)

Author: Holly Black

Date of Publication: October 1st, 2008

Goodreads Summary:

Rue Silver’s mother has disappeared . . . and her father has been arrested, suspected of killing her. But it’s not as straightforward as that. Because Rue is a faerie, like her mother was. And her father didn’t kill her mother — instead, he broke a promise to Rue’s faerie king grandfather, which caused Rue’s mother to be flung back to the faerie world. Now Rue must go to save her — and must also defeat a dark faerie that threatens our very mortal world.

My Review:

So I’ve only read one Holly Black book which was The Cruel Prince. Also, I don’t read graphic novels or any comic books really since I was like nine, and even then it was only the Archie comics. So I didn’t know how I was going to feel about it.

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First, the pictures were great! Seriously loved the illustrations. The graphic novel overall felt a bit lacking, but that may just be because I feel like I can get more of a story from an actual book. However, it was still really fun!

I did like the main character Rue—she had a cool vibe, but I still didn’t feel like there was a whole lot of characterization here for the characters. Again, that could just be because it was a graphic novel. So if you like comic book type books and fairies, I’d suggest giving this one a try!

 

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The Prince: Release Day Launch

 

From #1 New York Times Bestselling author Jennifer L. Armentrout, comes THE PRINCE, a new novella in her Wicked Series, brought to you by 1,001 Dark Nights! Be sure to grab your copy today!

 

From #1 New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Jennifer L. Armentrout comes a new story in her Wicked series…

She’s everything he wants….

Cold. Heartless. Deadly. Whispers of his name alone bring fear to fae and mortals alike. The Prince. There is nothing in the mortal world more dangerous than him. Haunted by a past he couldn’t control, all Caden desires is revenge against those who’d wronged him, trapping him in never-ending nightmare. And there is one person he knows can help him.

She’s everything he can’t have…

Raised within the Order, Brighton Jussier knows just how dangerous the Prince is, reformed or not. She’d seen firsthand what atrocities he could be capable of. The last thing she wants to do is help him, but he leaves her little choice. Forced to work alongside him, she begins to see the man under the bitter ice. Yearning for him feels like the definition of insanity, but there’s no denying the heat in his touch and the wicked promise is his stare.

She’s everything he’ll take….

But there’s someone out there who wants to return the Prince to his former self. A walking, breathing nightmare that is hell bent on destroying the world and everyone close to him. The last thing either of them needs is a distraction, but with the attraction growing between them each now, the one thing he wants more than anything may be the one thing that will be his undoing.

She’s everything he’d die for….

 

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EXCERPT:

Did it make you a bad friend if you were completely, a hundred percent envious of that friend? Yes? No? Kind of?

I figured it was somewhere in between.

That’s what I was mulling over as I watched Ivy Morgan brush thick, red curls over her shoulder, laughing at something her boyfriend Ren Owens had said to her.

At least I wasn’t envious of that—their love. Okay, well, that wasn’t entirely true. Pretty sure anyone who was as single as me would be envious of all that warm and fuzzy that was passed back and forth with each long look or casual brush of skin. The two could barely tear their gazes away from one another to eat the dinner we’d grabbed at the cute little diner inside the shopping center on Prytania Street.

I honest to God couldn’t be happier for them. They’d been through so much—way more than two people should ever have to go through to be together, and here they were, stronger and more in love than ever, and they deserved that happiness.

But their epic love story wasn’t the source of a current case of the green-eye monster that was sitting on my shoulder.

Ivy was just such a… badass.

Even right now, relaxed in the chair, surrounded by twinkling Christmas lights with her hand in Ren’s and her belly full of a cheeseburger deluxe and crinkle fries and half of my tater tots, she could kick ass and take names along with addresses, telephone numbers, and social security numbers.

If the proverbial poo hit the fan, you called Ivy or Ren.

If you needed to know what streets Royal intersected with, you called… me. Or if you needed coffee or fresh beignets but were currently busy, you know, saving the world, you’d call me.

The three of us were all members of the Order, a widespread organization that was literally the only thing that stood between mankind and complete, utter enslavement and destruction by the fae. And not the super cute fae found in Disney movies or some crap like that. Humans thought they were on top of the food chain. They were wrong. The fae were.

The only thing pop culture got right about the fae was their slightly pointy ears. That was it. The fae were more than just beings from another world—the Otherworld—they were capable of glamouring their appearance to blend in with humans. But all Order members, even me, were warded at birth against the glamour. We saw through the human façade to the creature that lurked beneath.

 

 

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About Jennifer L. Armentrout:

# 1 New York Times, USA Today and international bestselling author Jennifer L. Armentrout lives in Martinsburg, West Virginia. All the rumors you’ve heard about her state aren’t true. When she’s not hard at work writing. she spends her time reading, working out, watching really bad zombie movies, pretending to write, and hanging out with her husband and her Jack Russell Loki. Her dreams of becoming an author started in algebra class, where she spent most of her time writing short stories….which explains her dismal grades in math. Jennifer writes young adult paranormal, science fiction, fantasy, and contemporary romance. She is published with Spencer Hill Press, Entangled Teen and Brazen, Disney/Hyperion and Harlequin Teen. Her book Obsidian has been optioned for a major motion picture and her Covenant Series has been optioned for TV. She also writes adult and New Adult romance under the name J. Lynn. She is published by Entangled Brazen and HarperCollins.

 

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