I wasn’t going to review this series until I’ve read more of the overall series; there’s another duology and a comic and another standalone based in the same universe I haven’t gotten to yet but, my niece absolutely adores this series and is a little annoyed I have only given it 4 stars. Personally I love it when the author expands on the world and focuses on different characters or settings, so will I read more: Probably.
Jude is seven when a stranger appears, having similar cat eyes and fur-tufted ears like her older sister, Vivi. The stranger claims to be the first husband of her mother, who upon learning she was pregnant, fled to be with Jude’s father to live in the mortal realm. The stranger and Vivi’s father is Madoc, general of the High King of Elfhame, and in jealous rage, murders both parents in full sight of the three sisters. Madoc brings back his heir and two adopted daughters, Jude and Taryn, and raises them as children of an unfaithful wife. He later remarries and their strange family comes to include Oak, a son.
In spite of her initial hatred and fear of Madoc, Jude becomes the most like him of his daughters, training to become strong and becoming an excellent duelist and strategist. Ten years later, Jude has become a product of Elfhame; where fae of many courts of sea and land congregate. Humans are easily glamored and enchanted, but she’s aware of the dangers and almost thrives in the face of them; not so much to the consternation of the fae races (who would be threatened by a mortal?) but starting to fascinate some, the least (at least initially in Jude’s mind) is Cardan, youngest prince and possibly biggest pain in the ass of the royal family. As Jude and Taryn come of age she has the choice of returning to the mortal realm, or becoming something beyond a scion of Madoc: becoming accepted into the fae realm for mortals is done one of two ways: service or marriage. Jude chooses to become a knight in a world that is every bit as cruel and tricky and at the same time dazzling and beautiful as the faerie tales of yore.
It’s urban fantasy with a take on fae/elves that I adore – the beautiful elves are giant assholes for the most part, beautiful and/or terrifying, jealous and seemingly accomplishing less with their near-immortality than humanity does in their more limited years. Humans have more uses than the fae are willing to admit: They can carry the bloodline, and they can lie, and it seems that there’s more fire in the humans that we see than the majority of the fae. They seem almost stunted because they take for granted their beauty and their excess. They’re not all terrible – Orianna, Jude’s adoptive mother and Madoc’s second wife, played against my expectations and was a great character once I understood her game.
This is not a nice story where nice things happen or even where bad things happen to good people and they grow because of them. Cruelty is rewarded and terrible things occur, in a way that seems satisfying and real. Jude at first despises Prince Cardan, the youngest of the current king’s bloodline, but because they’re both products of Elfhame, they grow from nastiness and bullying to her using him to avenge her former employer, to the pair of them falling in love… lust… whatever; and Cardan growing beyond his trauma as well. The story explains why he is the way he is, but doesn’t apologize and make him seem a victim for it. I think the story is ultimately about trauma and overcoming it, and how those of us who have undergone certain trials and tribulations are better suited for helping those going through them, but I’ll talk about that below.
My complaints of the first book are 1) It should have been longer; the events in book 1 easily could have been 2 books, it felt like the plot was rushed 2) Jude is way too noticeable to be a spy; not just is she a beautiful teenage girl, but she’s Madoc’s daughter ergo, she’s known and 3) The limited scope worked against the story telling in the first book. Book 2 and 3, it worked really, really well. Often times, first person narration puts the author in a corner where the villain has to explain the plot for the reader, and it seems contrived. Jude’s tunnel vision blinds her, but also played against some of my expectations as well. It felt like the world of Elfhame and everything going on was much bigger in the first book, that the scope seemed so much smaller because of that intimate voice – but book 2 and 3 worked so well, whatever. The second book is fire, and deals with all the consequences of book 1. Book 3 was in my opinion the best but there were some things about the series as a whole that made me lower the overall grade to 4/5.
The story is ultimately meant for a YA audience, so I felt that the author had to tone things down, while at the same time being brutal and honest I kept getting the feeling that certain things were added because the publisher was worried the audience wasn’t smart enough to figure things out. Jude has a sort of weird, Stockholm syndrome going on; she has the ability to dust off her hands and exist in the mortal realm and stay away from everything but she’s part of the fae realm; but things like social insurance numbers and birth certificates aside, she’s a product of a fae realm and, when she’s temporary exiled to our world, rather than getting a minimum wage job to make ends meet accepts potentially lethal missions for much less than the going rate of regular old hit jobs so she has more time to mope. Towards the end of one book, a character is pregnant and abortion and adoption are mentioned even if there was no indication that the character was doing anything but trying to protect said baby prior to the event. There is some comeuppance – Jude tries to rescue a human servant at one point, bungles it up, and it costs the human her life. Another character, Heather, is brought to the fae realm and is so disturbed she asks Vivi to wipe her memory, although she later alters the bargain so that Vivi can introduce her to it again – sort of a second chance at beginnings.
Ultimately I felt that the story is about breaking the chains of trauma and moving forward – not that you’re perfect but a product of it. It really comes to play is at the end of the trilogy, Jude has every right to take Madoc’s life as he’s opposed the throne and the ones who sit on it. Instead, Jude banishes him to the human world and ultimately his profession – a bloodthirsty warrior – to raise his son because her parents never had the chance. Besides all the conspiring, murder and everything else he’s a stand up chap, really. Jude isn’t trying to change everything so much as helping Cardan become the king he’s meant to be, and loves her realm and people in spite of their many, many, many flaws.
I’m not talking is greedy and taking all the bananas because that’s something Cardan would do; she takes a cannibal fae into her service and it somehow works.
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