Holly Black is the queen of all the fae. She co-wrote the AMAZING series of The Spiderwick Chronicles with Tony DiTerlizzi and then she went on to write amazing books such as The Coldest Girl in Coldtown and The Darkest Part of the Forest. So when I was sent this book by the publisher, I had majorly high expectations going into it and I knew I wasn’t going to be disappointed.

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 really really enjoyed this book. I love her writing style, I love her characters, I love her fae creations, I just loved it all. Apart from one thing… And this is a little bit spoilery, so if you don’t want any spoilers, just skip the rest of this paragraph. So basically, there’s this very very horrible character called Prince Cardan and he treats Jude with so much contempt it is just disgusting. But guess what, guys? Turns out that he’s treating her like dirt because HE ACTUALLY LIKES HER! LIKE… HAS FEELINGS FOR HER. It takes me back to the days of my childhood where little girls were told boys bully them because they like them. It’s just wrong. I’m sorry but I just don’t agree with that and I kind of expected more from Holly Black…

“If I cannot be better than them, I will become so much worse.”

― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

Ok, rant over. Excluding the point above, I absolutely loved this book. The beginning was just amazing and in true Holly Black style, she spent the next couple hundred pages building the tension and giving us more information about the characters. There was blood and gore and rivalry and it was just amazing. There was so much depth to the characters which made me love them (and I even felt bad for the villains at times – except for Cardan, I pretty much hated him the whole way through).

This book has the just the right amount of drama, death, surprises, and romance which makes the novel so compelling and I can’t wait for the next book to come out! I don’t think we have a date yet for when the sequel is out but I JUST CAN’T WAIT! It’s going to be amazing.

I’m glad to be reading Holly Black’s books again. I forgot how amazing she is at her job and I can’t wait to read the book again!