Proud, stubborn, and lonely 17-year-old Sena Korhosen survives by picking pockets.
The only thing Sena wants is to save enough money to get off-world, far away from Tundar, an unforgiving planet of electrical storms and bitter cold. When she crosses a cruel crime boss, he offers her clemency—if she can rehabilitate his vicious, prizefighting she-wolf. It’s not a task she feels up to, but she has no other choice if she wants to escape to a better life. After a near-fatal turn of events, Sena finds herself in charge of the stolen she-wolf and agreeing to do the one thing she swore she’d never do: take part in a deadly 1,000-mile race to reach valuable exocarbon deposits, the same race that claimed her mothers’ lives five years before. Sena may not have a lot, but with the wolf Iska by her side, she has a lot to lose and even more to gain. The action scenes are so fast-paced as to cause whiplash, while quieter interludes slow down enough to allow readers to catch their breath. There is no romantic subplot—instead, the growing trust between Sena and Iska is the focus. The worldbuilding is intricate, and the icy setting is so detailed that readers will feel the need to bundle up as they speed through to the exciting and satisfying conclusion. Main characters are assumed White; some secondary characters have brown skin.
Fast and furious. (Science fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Jan. 11, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-78506-0
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2021
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A heady blend of courtly double-crossing, Faerie lore, and toxic attraction swirls together in the sequel to The Cruel Prince (2018).
Five months after engineering a coup, human teen Jude is starting to feel the strain of secretly controlling King Cardan and running his Faerie kingdom. Jude’s self-loathing and anger at the traumatic events of her childhood (her Faerie “dad” killed her parents, and Faerie is not a particularly easy place even for the best-adjusted human) drive her ambition, which is tempered by her desire to make the world she loves and hates a little fairer. Much of the story revolves around plotting (the Queen of the Undersea wants the throne; Jude’s Faerie father wants power; Jude’s twin, Taryn, wants her Faerie betrothed by her side), but the underlying tension—sexual and political—between Jude and Cardan also takes some unexpected twists. Black’s writing is both contemporary and classic; her world is, at this point, intensely well-realized, so that some plot twists seem almost inevitable. Faerie is a strange place where immortal, multihued, multiformed denizens can’t lie but can twist everything; Jude—who can lie—is an outlier, and her first-person, present-tense narration reveals more than she would choose. With curly dark brown hair, Jude and Taryn are never identified by race in human terms.
A rare second volume that surpasses the first, with, happily, more intrigue and passion still to come. (map) (Fantasy. 14-adult)Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-31035-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2018
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Broken people, complicated families, magic, and Faerie politics: Black’s back.
After the tumultuous ending to the last volume (marriage, exile, and the seeming collapse of all her plots), Jude finds herself in the human world, which lacks appeal despite a childhood spent longing to go back. The price of her upbringing becomes clear: A human raised in the multihued, multiformed, always capricious Faerie High Court by the man who killed her parents, trained for intrigue and combat, recruited to a spy organization, and ultimately the power behind the coup and the latest High King, Jude no longer understands how to exist happily in a world that isn’t full of magic and danger. A plea from her estranged twin sends her secretly back to Faerie, where things immediately come to a boil with Cardan (king, nemesis, love interest) and all the many political strands Jude has tugged on for the past two volumes. New readers will need to go back to The Cruel Prince (2018) to follow the complexities—political and personal side plots abound—but the legions of established fans will love every minute of this lushly described, tightly plotted trilogy closer. Jude might be traumatized and emotionally unhealthy, but she’s an antihero worth cheering on. There are few physical descriptions of humans and some queer representation.
Whether you came for the lore or the love, perfection. (Fantasy. 14-adult)Pub Date: Nov. 19, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-31042-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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