The Cruel Prince (The Folk of the Air, 1) by Holly Black
Read sample
Customer reviews

The Cruel Prince (The Folk of the Air, 1)

by

Holly Black

(Author)

4.4

-

49,039 ratings


By #1 New York Times bestselling author Holly Black, the first book in a stunning new series about a mortal girl who finds herself caught in a web of royal faerie intrigue.

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.

Kindle

$0.00

Available instantly

Audiobook

$0.00

with membership trial

Hardcover

$12.76

Paperback

$7.38

Audio CD from $29.25
Buy Now

Ships from

Amazon.com

Payment

Secure transaction

ISBN-10

031631031X

ISBN-13

978-0316310314

Print length

416 pages

Language

English

Publisher

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Publication date

December 03, 2018

Dimensions

5.5 x 1.4 x 8.25 inches

Item weight

12.8 ounces



Popular Highlights in this book

  • Most of all, I hate you because I think of you. Often. It’s disgusting, and I can’t stop.

    Highlighted by 10,904 Kindle readers

  • I want to win. I do not yearn to be their equal. In my heart, I yearn to best them.

    Highlighted by 5,492 Kindle readers

  • I cannot seem to contort myself back into the shape of a dutiful child. I am coming unraveled. I am coming undone.

    Highlighted by 4,297 Kindle readers

  • I can see why humans succumb to the beautiful nightmare of the Court, why they willingly drown in it.

    Highlighted by 3,788 Kindle readers


Product details

ASIN :

B06Y5HPRLC

File size :

25902 KB

Text-to-speech :

Enabled

Screen reader :

Supported

Enhanced typesetting :

Enabled

X-Ray :

Enabled

Word wise :

Not Enabled


Editorial Reviews

A New York Times Bestseller

An IndieBound Bestseller

A Boston Globe Best Book of 2018

An ALA 2019 Children's Notables List Pick

"Black is a master at world-building, conveying integral details without that information ever seeming tedious or encyclopedic, whether you're well versed in faerie or a newcomer to the genre....the experience of reading a novel like this is something like being surrounded by magic."―The New York Times Book Review

"Lush, dangerous, a dark jewel of a book. Black's world is intoxicating, imbued with a relentless sense of peril that kept me riveted through every chapter of Jude's journey. And Jude! She is a heroine to love--brave but pragmatic, utterly human. This delicious story will seduce you and leave you desperate for just one more page."―Leigh Bardugo, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom

"I require book two immediately. Holly is the Faerie Queen."―Victoria Aveyard, #1 bestselling author of The Red Queen series

"[S]pellbinding....Breathtaking set pieces, fully developed supporting characters, and a beguiling, tough-as-nails heroine enhance an intricate, intelligent plot that crescendos to a jaw-dropping third-act twist."―Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Another fantastic, deeply engaging, and all-consuming work from Black that belongs on all YA shelves."―School Library Journal, starred review

"Jude, who struggles with a world she both loves and hates and would rather be powerful and safe than good, is a compelling narrator. Whatever a reader is looking for--heart-in-throat action, deadly romance, double-crossing, moral complexity--this is one heck of a ride."―Booklist, starred review

"This is a heady blend of Faerie lore, high fantasy, and high school drama, dripping with description that brings the dangerous but tempting world of Faerie to life. Black is building a complex mythology; now is a great time to tune in."―Kirkus Reviews

"Black, quite rightly, is the acknowledged queen of faerie lit, and her latest shows her to be at the top of her game, unveiling twists and secrets and bringing her characters vividly to life."―VOYA, starred review

"With complicated characters, a suspenseful plot, and a successful return to the Faerie setting of many of her popular books, Black's latest is sure to enchant fans."―The Horn Book

"Another enthralling story in Black's fantasy catalog."―PASTE.com

"Black has a compelling series about fairies, politics and finding your place in the world, starting with this novel, which I read in a single day."―USA Today

Read more


Sample

Chapter 2

I sit on a cushion as an imp braids my hair back from my face. The imp’s fingers are long, her nails sharp. I wince. Her black eyes meet mine in the claw-footed mirror on my dressing table.

“The tournament is still four nights away,” the creature says. Her name is Tatterfell, and she’s a servant in Madoc’s household, stuck here until she works off her debt to him. She’s cared for me since I was a child. It was Tatterfell who smeared stinging faerie ointment over my eyes to give me True Sight so that I could see through most glamours, who brushed the mud from my boots, and who strung dried rowan berries for me to wear around my neck so I might resist enchantments. She wiped my wet nose and reminded me to wear my stockings inside out, so I’d never be led astray in the forest. “And no matter how eager you are for it, you cannot make the moon set nor rise any faster. Try to bring glory to the general’s household tonight by appearing as comely as we can make you.”

I sigh.

She’s never had much patience with my peevishness. “It’s an honor to dance with the High King’s Court under the hill.”

The servants are overfond of telling me how fortunate I am, a bastard daughter of a faithless wife, a human without a drop of faerie blood, to be treated like a trueborn child of Faerie. They tell Taryn much the same thing.

I know it’s an honor to be raised alongside the Gentry’s own children. A terrifying honor, of which I will never be worthy.

It would be hard to forget it, with all the reminders I am given.

“Yes,” I say instead, because she is trying to be kind. “It’s great.”

Faeries can’t lie, so they tend to concentrate on words and ignore tone, especially if they haven’t lived among humans. Tatterfell gives me an approving nod, her eyes like two wet beads of jet, neither pupil nor iris visible. “Perhaps someone will ask for your hand and you’ll be made a permanent member of the High Court.”

“I want to win my place,” I tell her.

The imp pauses, hairpin between her fingers, probably considering pricking me with it. “Don’t be foolish.”

There’s no point in arguing, no point to reminding her of my mother’s disastrous marriage. There are two ways for mortals to become permanent subjects of the Court: marrying into it or honing some great skill—in metallurgy or lute playing or whatever. Not interested in the first, I have to hope I can be talented enough for the second.

She finishes braiding my hair into an elaborate style that makes me look as though I have horns. She dresses me in sapphire velvet. None of it disguises what I am: human.

“I put in three knots for luck,” the little faerie says, not unkindly.

I sigh as she scuttles toward the door, getting up from my dressing table to sprawl facedown on my tapestry-covered bed. I am used to having servants attend to me. Imps and hobs, goblins and grigs. Gossamer wings and green nails, horns and fangs. I have been in Faerie for ten years. None of it seems all that strange anymore. Here, I am the strange one, with my blunt fingers, round ears, and mayfly life.

Ten years is a long time for a human.

After Madoc stole us from the human world, he brought us to his estates on Insmire, the Isle of Might, where the High King of Elfhame keeps his stronghold. There, Madoc raised us—me and Vivienne and Taryn—out of an obligation of honor. Even though Taryn and I are the evidence of Mom’s betrayal, by the customs of Faerie, we’re his wife’s kids, so we’re his problem. As the High King’s general, Madoc was away often, fighting for the crown. We were well cared for nonetheless. We slept on mattresses stuffed with the soft seed-heads of dandelions. Madoc personally instructed us in the art of fighting with the cutlass and dagger, the falchion and our fists. He played Nine Men’s Morris, Fidchell, and Fox and Geese with us before a fire. He let us sit on his knee and eat off his plate.

Many nights I drifted off to sleep to his rumbling voice reading from a book of battle strategy. And despite myself, despite what he’d done and what he was, I came to love him. I do love him.

It’s just not a comfortable kind of love.

“Nice braids,” Taryn says, rushing into my room. She’s dressed in crimson velvet. Her hair is loose—long chestnut curls that fly behind her like a capelet, a few strands braided with gleaming silver thread. She hops onto the bed beside me, disarranging my small pile of threadbare stuffed animals—a koala, a snake, a black cat—all beloved of my seven-year-old self. I cannot bear to throw out any of my relics.

I sit up to take a self-conscious look in the mirror. “I like them.”

“I’m having a premonition,” Taryn says, surprising me. “We’re going to have fun tonight.”

“Fun?” I’d been imagining myself frowning at the crowd from our usual bolt-hole and worrying over whether I’d do well enough in the tournament to impress one of the royal family into granting me knighthood. Just thinking about it makes me fidgety, yet I think about it constantly. My thumb brushes over the missing tip of my ring finger, my nervous tic. “Yes,” she says, poking me in the side.

“Hey! Ow!” I scoot out of range. “What exactly does this plan entail?” Mostly, when we go to Court, we hide ourselves away. We’ve watched some very interesting things, but from a distance.

She throws up her hands. “What do you mean, what does fun entail? It’s fun!”

I laugh a little nervously. “You have no idea, either, do you? Fine. Let’s go see if you have a gift for prophecy.”

We are getting older and things are changing. We are changing. And as eager as I am for it, I am also afraid.

Taryn pushes herself off my bed and holds out her arm, as though she’s my escort for a dance. I allow myself to be guided from the room, my hand going automatically to assure myself that my knife is still strapped to my hip.

The interior of Madoc’s house is whitewashed plaster and massive, rough-cut wooden beams. The glass panes in the windows are stained gray as trapped smoke, making the light strange. As Taryn and I go down the spiral stairs, I spot Vivi hiding in a little balcony, frowning over a comics zine stolen from the human world.

Vivi grins at me. She’s in jeans and a billowy shirt—obviously not intending to go to the revel. Being Madoc’s legitimate daughter, she feels no pressure to please him. She does what she likes. Including reading magazines that might have iron staples rather than glue binding their pages, not caring if her fingers get singed.

“Heading somewhere?” she asks softly from the shadows, startling Taryn.

Vivi knows perfectly well where we’re heading.

When we first came here, Taryn and Vivi and I would huddle in Vivi’s big bed and talk about what we remembered from home. We’d talk about the meals Mom burned and the popcorn Dad made. Our next-door neighbors’ names, the way the house smelled, what school was like, the holidays, the taste of icing on birthday cakes. We’d talk about the shows we’d watched, rehashing the plots, recalling the dialogue until all our memories were polished smooth and false.

There’s no more huddling in bed now, rehashing anything. All our new memories are of here, and Vivi has only a passing interest in those.

She’d vowed to hate Madoc, and she stuck to her vow. When Vivi wasn’t reminiscing about home, she was a terror. She broke things. She screamed and raged and pinched us when we were content. Eventually, she stopped all of it, but I believe there is a part of her that hates us for adapting. For making the best of things. For making this our home.

“You should come,” I tell her. “Taryn’s in a weird mood.”

Vivi gives her a speculative look and then shakes her head. “I’ve got other plans.” Which might mean she’s going to sneak over to the mortal world for the evening or it might mean she’s going to spend it on the balcony, reading.

Either way, if it annoys Madoc, it pleases Vivi.

He’s waiting for us in the hall with his second wife, Oriana. Her skin is the bluish color of skim milk, and her hair is as white as fresh-fallen snow. She is beautiful but unnerving to look at, like a ghost. Tonight she is wearing green and gold, a mossy dress with an elaborate shining collar that makes the pink of her mouth, her ears, and her eyes stand out. Madoc is dressed in green, too, the color of deep forests. The sword at his hip is no ornament.

Outside, past the open double doors, a hob waits, holding the silver bridles of five dappled faerie steeds, their manes braided in complicated and probably magical knots. I think of the knots in my hair and wonder how similar they are.

“You both look well,” Madoc says to Taryn and me, the warmth in his tone making the words a rare compliment. His gaze goes to the stairs. “Is your sister on her way?”

“I don’t know where Vivi is,” I lie. Lying is so easy here. I can do it all day long and never be caught. “She must have forgotten.”

Disappointment passes over Madoc’s face, but not surprise. He heads outside to say something to the hob holding the reins. Nearby, I see one of his spies, a wrinkled creature with a nose like a parsnip and a back hunched higher than her head. She slips a note into his hand and darts off with surprising nimbleness.

Oriana looks us over carefully, as though she expects to find something amiss.

“Be careful tonight,” Oriana says. “Promise me you will neither eat nor drink nor dance.”

“We’ve been to Court before,” I remind her, a Faerie nonanswer if ever there was one.

“You may think salt is sufficient protection, but you children are forgetful. Better to go without. As for dancing, once begun, you mortals will dance yourselves to death if we don’t prevent it.”

I look at my feet and say nothing.

We children are not forgetful.

Madoc married her seven years ago, and shortly after, she gave him a child, a sickly boy named Oak, with tiny, adorable horns on his head. It has always been clear that Oriana puts up with me and Taryn only for Madoc’s sake. She seems to think of us as her husband’s favored hounds: poorly trained and likely to turn on our master at any moment.

Oak thinks of us as sisters, which I can tell makes Oriana nervous, even though I would never do anything to hurt him.

“You are under Madoc’s protection, and he has the favor of the High King,” Oriana says. “I will not see Madoc made to look foolish because of your mistakes.”

With that little speech complete, she walks out toward the horses. One snorts and strikes the ground with a hoof.

Taryn and I share a look and then follow her. Madoc is already seated on the largest of the faerie steeds, an impressive creature with a scar beneath one eye. Its nostrils flare with impatience. It tosses its mane restlessly.

I swing up onto a pale green horse with sharp teeth and a swampy odor. Taryn chooses a rouncy and kicks her heels against its flanks. She takes off like a shot, and I follow, plunging into the night.

Read more


About the authors

Holly Black

Holly Black

Holly Black is the #1 New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of speculative and fantasy novels, short stories, and comics. She has been a finalist for an Eisner and a Lodestar Award, and the recipient of the Mythopoeic Award, a Nebula, and a Newbery Honor. She has sold over 26 million books worldwide, her work has been translated into over 30 languages and adapted for film. She currently lives in New England with her husband and son in a house with a secret library.

Read more


Reviews

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5

49,039 global ratings

TALS

TALS

5

THE GOOD The world

Reviewed in the United States on May 7, 2018

Verified Purchase

Jude and her two sisters are taken to Faerie to live with their mother's former Fae War General lover, growing up in a harsh world of magic and unfriendly Folk. Jude hates that she is mortal and covets many things about the fey. Her life becomes dangerously entangled as her desire for respect, power and adventure meets the attention of the royals...especially Cardan, the prince she hates above all.

THE GOOD

The world, the diversity, the sense of each character--even the side characters. We aren't entrenched in learning only about Jude and her relation to the world as the MC. Instead there is an array of well-developed and independently driven characters who leave little breadcrumbs about what they've been through, where they've been, and who they've been with. Because the Folk can't lie, they craft their sentences in a way that can leave things with a lot of ambiguity, but when it all starts to click...it is one heck of a ride.

From the first brutal pages, the author makes no apologies for the blood-driven power of Madoc, the true father of the eldest sister Vivienne, who has come to reclaim his daughter (and her younger sisters) from the mortal world. You can feel the immediate fear and reverence for the immortal. I love the way that Madoc is made; incredibly strong and strict, but also pliable and deferring to his daughters' whims and wills at times. And his family is, as you can imagine, is not a status quo, nuclear unit. His first wife is slain, his new wife is fey and has a son, and then he has Vivienne, Taryn and Jude. He loves, protects and educates all of them, but he is so much more than a father and the image he projects.

Faerie and the mortal world. Yes, you get two coinciding worlds in this beauty of a book. Instead of making the worlds geographically separated by a wall or continent or a magic parallel world, these worlds are overlapped the way you may have seen in early fairy tales. Vivi, while she is one of the folk, likes to travel back to the mortal world with her sisters, and by herself at times. Her rebellion against Madoc is to shun Faerie and enjoy all the human joys of malls, a secret human girlfriend, and indulging her sisters with coffee, candy and shopping. One of my favorite moments is when Jude gets to glimpse part of the mortal world while in Faerie. The description was fascinating and gorgeous. It made me feel how close they were, how far they were, and where Jude's real interest was in this world.

The royals are equally fascinating. We don't get to intimately understand all of them, however we learn just enough about each, chapter by chapter. The ailing king. The Crown Prince Dain, the "Cruel" Prince Cardan, the power-hungry Prince Balekin, and glimpses of the princesses and others, including royals from other courts. Cardan was by far my favorite, being deliciously complex and...well, I should move him to the next section.

THE GREAT

“He looks like a faerie lover stepped out of a ballad, the kind where no good comes to the girl who runs away with him.”

The anti-love interest. I know I am a huge fan of anti-heroes, but I didn't quite understand the anti-love interest until now. But now I get it. And it's glorious.

Cardan is Jude's main source of torment and her favorite thing to hate. So from this first introduction in the quote above, I'm sorry, but I couldn't help but to think of Rhysand from ACOTAR. The acknowledgment of an unworldly beauty that draws someone in, but also compels them in the other direction. They are satellites of each other in this book, much like Rhys and Feyre were in the first book...entangled by circumstance, but that is where the similarities end. Cardan is a tormentor to her. Jude is a disrespectful and unworthy human to him. Hence, their classmate and royal vs. human relationship statues hold magnificent tension. I don't want to spoil anything, but there are a few twists in this book for them.

“I love my parents' murderer; I suppose I could love anyone.”

Jude. Jude is the other great of this book. I loved her sisters, but I loved Jude the most because she is so incredibly flawed and aware of it. And what's better...she doesn't act like you would expect a heroine to act. Maybe because she isn't going to be a heroine, ultimately. Two more books to figure her out. She has some noble thoughts, but is also a jumble of envy, longing, rapid mood swings, sisterly love, sisterly hate, and a fair dose of scheming. She isn't described as particularly beautiful, which I think made me love her more because we are seeing her through her eyes. Jude comments on noticing things like her height and hips and the heavy weight of her breasts in comparison to the lithe fey bodies around her. She feels nearly gross with humanness, having to deal with things like deodorant and tampons. In short, she felt like a real teenager.

My favorite thing about Jude though? She doesn't know exactly what she's capable of. She has a gut-sense of what to do, but mostly she seems to be getting by on her training from school, from Madoc, and instincts. It feels like she could fall off the very narrow blade she walks on at any moment. And that really propelled the story forward.

BUY, BORROW OR PASS

BUY. Absolutely buy. This series has only started and the rest of the series became an insta-buy for me after the first chapter.

Oh Jude, you don't know what you've done. That ending is going to haunt me.

Read more

20 people found this helpful

Cristal Loe

Cristal Loe

5

WOW! This is the type of book that NEVER gets boring or stagnant.

Reviewed in the United States on July 1, 2024

Verified Purchase

I’ve never really read books about faeries so I wasn’t sure if I’d be into it. But this is soo well written and intriguing- I’m very highly impressed!! So many different unique characters and personalities. Im off to buy Book 2!!!

The Belle

The Belle

5

and enthusiasts are pushing the free marketing of books attached to hashtags and accompanied by beautiful and creative photography upon Instagram and other social media ...

Reviewed in the United States on March 9, 2018

Verified Purchase

I used to never be a reader who gave into the hype and buzz a new book can sometimes bring along with it. But while Instagram has taken book marketing to an entirely different level, some books are becoming difficult to ignore. Literally thousands upon thousands of readers, reviewers, publicists, and enthusiasts are pushing the free marketing of books attached to hashtags and accompanied by beautiful and creative photography upon Instagram and other social media site purveyors daily. The Cruel Prince was one book that began to saturate my feed as readers latched on to the newest novel by fantasy maven Holly Black; their accolades and insistent cries that the book shattered them caught my interest and I decided to dive in.

The opening is brutal. Young Jude and her two sisters are enjoying a quiet afternoon at home, the TV lulling them into a comfortable slumber while their parents tinker about in other parts of their cozy home. Unbeknownst to them, this is the day that everything they have ever known will change, as the man watching their home from across the street decides to finally make his move. The stranger barges into their haven and shatters the idyllic scene by murdering both of Jude's parents in a quick and succinct fashion.

Whisked away to the land of Faerie, Jude and her sisters are forced into a life settled firmly on the borders of being outsiders. Her oldest sister, Vivi, being the cause of the disruption in their lives, is ironically the most unhappy with their new situation. She is only Jude's half-sister, the result of their mother faking her own death and spiriting herself and her pregnant belly back to the mortal world, with the help of a secret love. Previously attached to a brutal  war general of Faerie, Jude's mother committed the ultimate act of betrayal by hiding the child, and the result was her execution. By the laws vested in Faerie, General Madoc became responsible for the children of his wife the moment she died at his hand, and he takes his responsibilities very seriously.

Growing up in Faerie has had its difficulties, almost from day one. Jude is not one of them, not a member of the Fair Folk. She is human: dispensable and fragile; a veritable non-starter. Her saving grace, however, is that she is a member of the upper class and elite. Having been raised by Madoc garners her a touch of reverance. He is a man who commands respect and if he doesn't find it, he takes it by force. Having risen to become the right hand of the Faerie King by hook, crook, and buckets of blood, Jude is afforded a modicum of respect in Madoc's stead. But behind the scenes, she is taunted and ridiculed by her peers, looked at as a pretender, and as a frail human who has no real worth or talent. To say the situation is complicated is an understatement.

The worst of those who bully her is Cardan, the beautiful young Prince of Faerie who chooses to amuse himself by taunting her and putting her right onto the cusp of deathly danger before ripping her back. He skulks around the periphery of her life with his band of merry friends, waiting for any opportunity he can find to make her life miserable. Her twin sister Taryn also suffers the same fate of having her life soaked in nasty words and actions . . . but there is something different in the way Cardan treats Jude - almost as if he divines immense pleasure from making her bleed from within, from personally making her feel like less than human . . . and more like an animal.

Cardan is cruel, to say the least of it. But Jude has other things on her mind. She has to find a way to solidify her place in Faerie as the impending years of her adulthood begin to creep just over the horizon. She has some ideas on how to do this, but she finds that she's blocked at every turn by her pseudo-father, Madoc. He insists that he has her best interests at heart, and he has always treated her just the same as his true born daughter Vivi, but Jude is cloaked in a blanket of frustration and raw anger. She wants to fight. She's trained for it. So why won't he allow her her chance?

She's also finding herself strangely attracted to a member of Cardan's vicious pack, but the man in question seems to have secrets of his own, hidden within the endless depths of his mysterious soul and locked behind the doors of the expansive empty mansion on the outskirts of the forest that he calls home.

And then a proposition is brought to Jude, from the most unlikely of characters. The man most believed to become King after the current reign is over comes to her in secret, seeking an alliance. Prince Dain offers Jude her innermost heart's desires, in exchange for information. He wants her to become his spy, part of his Court of Shadows. And Jude must toe the thin line between safety and sure death to get the Prince what he demands.

But before Jude can achieve her goal and find her place in Faerie, everything begins to unravel like so much thread from a well-worn sweater. And on an evening that was supposed to be dedicated to a fresh new start, Jude will watch everything burn to the ground, leaving her to pick up the pieces and put them back together all on her own.

The Cruel Prince is the first book in the Folk of the Air trilogy, and before I recommend this to you let me say - you will be clamoring for more from the moment you turn the last page. This novel, set in the high-fantasy world of enigmatic Faerie, is sharp and deceptive, taking the reader on a roller coaster ride full of darkness and delight. The writing is masterful and faithful to the fictional world of Faerie as most high-fantasy readers know it. Sometimes YA books can come across as a bit corny, but this one was full of strong female characters and flawed systems. Nothing was obvious, and the plot was well-played. 

This is one book that lives up to the hype. Appropriate for readers ages 13+, fans of The Cruel Prince would be wise to look into the rest of Black's literary catalogue, as the worlds of her novels have finely tuned connections. Also, the cover art and a sneak peek excerpt has been dropped via Entertainment Weekly - both can be viewed on their website.  

Read more

72 people found this helpful

MizFitz

MizFitz

5

Super Fun Easy Read

Reviewed in the United States on July 3, 2024

Verified Purchase

This book was chosen as a read along book for the month of July and well I read it in three days. I liked the pace of the book and the ending I definitely did not see it coming. The characters are not super deep but well written for what they are. I am looking forward to reading the next book.

Tiana Burton

Tiana Burton

5

This Ate Down

Reviewed in the United States on June 6, 2024

Verified Purchase

So, I was expecting to like this story. Was not at all prepared for how much I genuinely love it. I LOVE that they aren’t together yet and I LOVE that despite it all Jude has continued to put family first. Taryn… I could do without her but I get it and I understand. Love Viv. She deserves the world. Cardan is pleasant, disliked enough that in the beginning I couldn’t stand him but not unredeemable. I think it makes it a lot easier that even though Jude did not know what he was doing. The reader could tell? I think that was extremely well written. Like I could tell everything the other characters could possibly be feeling even though I wasn’t reading the story from their perspective. It was kind of like Jude knew exactly what was going on the entire time but refused to believe. Like she was lying to herself as well. Which I suppose she was. This was a pleasant read.

Read more

More reviews