Saturday Pages: The Iron Queen by Julie Kagawa!!

Hey guys! I'm gonna be starting this week's Saturday Pages with the book that was originally planned as the ending of the Iron Fey trilogy, but that thankfully became the third one into a four book series! As the rest of the books, this one is part of my 2014 Series Challenge!

The Iron Queen by Julie Kagawa

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


After the ending of The Iron Daughter that left us with so many questions and unsolved issues, I jumped straight into reading The Iron Queen (joys of binge reading a series!).

As always, you can expect some spoilers for both The Iron King and The Iron Daughter on this review, but will try my best to avoid any spoilers for the plot of this one.

This was conceived as the final book on the trilogy, but I'm so glad that Julie decided to add Ash's book afterwards!

We start right where we left Meghan and Ash at the end of The Iron Daughter, exiled to the human world and Meghan feeling like she can finally go home to her family with Ash by her side. But of course, things couldn't & wouldn't be that easy, would they? Poor Meghan realizes that exile or not, the Iron Fey are still there and she'd put her family in danger by coming back home, so she decides to not hide and bring the fight to the Iron Realm!

I really liked Meghan so much in this book! Even with all her doubts and sometimes even her denial to see what was in front of her, she was always strong, she always made the choices that had to be made, even if they were extremely tough for her, and she had a fantastic non-Fey attitude that the Nevernever really needs! Even so, she's gotten so much better at avoiding being tricked by the Fey, she's still her but won't be run head first into anything with the Fey and will be more mindful of her words & contracts to them.

She once again teams up with Grimalkin (YAY!), Ash & Puck, and all together they start their journey to defeat the False Iron King in the very heart of the Iron Realm, while there's a battle about to start between Summer & Winter or maybe finally with Summer & Winter as allies against the Iron Fey.

The world building as always was absolutely phenomenal, the Iron Realm was such a fascinating place! With equally fascinating creatures, and we finally properly meet Razor! (I had been waiting for his introduction forever since I fell in love with him in The Lost Prince!) but Grimalkin continues to be my absolute favourite secondary character here, he's just so Chesire cat but even more awesome!

The relationship between Ash and Meghan was great, even if sometimes Ash got terribly offended by things that Meghan did meaning well and without the knowledge of what it'd mean for him as a fey, which required some talking between them after someone explained it to Meghan. Why wouldn't Ash try and explain things before getting all closed up and letting Meghan figure it on his own? At least Meghan tends to explain why or why not she does things! Still, their relationship is quite sweet and it's great that they support each other fight as equals.

The final part of the book and the ending are particularly cruel to the reader's feelings and I was saved of more awful suffering because I already knew how everything ended up since I had read the spin-off series first. But still, I went onto read The Iron Knight as soon as I finished The Iron Queen!

An amazing book with great world building, quite the intriguing plot (even if I figured out who the False Iron King was before Meghan did, I felt a bit like Grimalkin there...) and that quite simply made me love reading about the Fey! Well deserved 4.5 stars!





View all my reviews

Saturday Pages: The Iron King by Julie Kagawa!!

Hello everyone! This week for Saturday Pages I'm gonna finally start reviewing The Iron Fey series that I read back in Feb, when I was on vacation! It felt a bit odd reading this series from the beginning now since I had already spoiled myself by reading the spin-off series, The Call of The Forgotten, but I still really enjoyed the books!

This series wasn't part of my original goal for my 2014 Series Challenge, but since I finished the whole series, I decided to add it too!

The Iron King by Julie Kagawa

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I started reading Julie Kagawa series in a strange order, cause the first book I read was The Lost Prince, the spin off for this series all about Ethan, and then I read The Iron Traitor and I really loved them both. So I decided that if Julie Kagawa had made me love books about faeires, I ought to check the original series, so I went on a binge read for The Iron Fey series!

On the Iron King we are introduced to Meghan Chase, a girl that has always felt a bit different from everyone, that feels like her stepfather doesn't remember she exists half the time and that adores her half brother, Ethan. She has her best friend Robbie but the rest of high school isn't a very pleasant experience. Then everything starts changing for her when Ethan is kidnapped, and she discovers she's being lied to by Robbie and that's more to her than she ever imagined!

We then travel for the first time to the Nevernever and we meet Puck properly as he is, not as his Robbie persona. We also get to meet Grimalkin (the most amazing fey version of the Chesire cat!) and we discover that Meghan is half fey and not any faery either, but a princess, much to her changrin. She ends up in the court of Summer, blundering her way about, and messing things up by being her unsubtle and headstrong self. I couldn't help but adore Meghan, even if at times I felt like telling her to watch and learn instead of just opening her mouth and running away with it!

Then she meets Ash, the Unseelie prince from the Winter court and everything changes. She suspects her brother might be taken there but then discovers that he's being kept in a new realm in the Nevernever, the realm of the Iron Fey. So Meghan decides she'll risk everything to rescue Ethan, and so she starts a quest of sort with Puck, Ash and Grimalkin to go defeat the Iron Fey and get Ethan back.

It's always an odd feeling reading a book (or in fact a whole series) when you sort of already know what happens and what doesn't in the end, even if you don't know how it did. I guess it took a lil bit of the direness of some of what was happening for me, but I absolutely loved learning so much more about the Fey and the Nevernever and meeting Puck and Grimalkin anew! Grimalkin is such a fantastic secondary character!

A very satisfying read and one that proved that yes indeed, Julie Kagawa does write Fey books that I love reading! 4 well deserved stars.



View all my reviews

ARC Review of The Iron Traitor by Julie Kagawa!

The final entry for this Saturday edition of Friday Reads is for the second book of The Iron Fey: Call of the Forgotten series, The Iron Traitor that was released on October 29th.


The Iron Traitor by Julie Kagawa

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


First of all, I have to say a big thank you to Harlequin Teen for approving my request for an eARC of this via NetGalley!

The Iron Traitor is a sequel and though I'm not sure if it's just a second book or a middle book (is it a series or a trilogy?) it had to keep up to quite high standards for me and thankfully, it did that and then some!

I will try to keep this review as spoiler free as possible, but there might be some spoilers for book 1, even if I'll try to avoid those too. What I'm gonna say from the very beginning... you need to be warned about something, yes THAT cliffhanger ending! I feel like going into the book forewarned about it doesn't take away from the enjoyment of it, but does help a bit dealing with the shock and emotional misery! So thank you, Sam, for the warning about this cliffhanger, I will join your petition for banning them!

Ethan now is still getting used to the fact that he's not alone in his fight against the Fey, and he's not even sure he's so against them anymore. He has Kenzie to fight for and he has found some allies in the Nevernever, Keirran and Annwyl, Razor, even Grimalkin and Puck. When the Lost Prince was mostly about Ethan and his own path and fight, here Keirran has a growing role since Ethan and Kenzie are mostly dragged along trying to help him on his quest to save Annwyl.

The biggest strenght of this book is that it takes everything that was good from book 1 and takes it up a notch. Our quartet has to go into the Nevernever and not just for a short trip, they have to face Titania and her whims and cruelty, they have to fight old beasts and they will probably start something worse than a war, all of that in the name of love. All the characters grown and progress and Keirran in a very disquieting way, and you start not being sure what is really going on with him. There seems to be quite a deal of information we're not privy to and I'm hoping we'll get some more answers in the next book.

The ending... well, you have been warned about the massive emotional cliffhanger from the start, and trust me, it's the kinda cliffhanger that makes you want to be for the next book to come out like yesterday, but we still have a year to wait!!

All in all, a great read very much deserving of 4.5 stars!





View all my reviews

Review of The Lost Prince (The Iron Fey: Call of the Forgotten) by Julie Kawaga!

As the next Friday-Reads-but-not-really  review, here is the pleasant surprise for me of a book about the Fae that I actually loved and that made me want to read another series about the Fae!


The Lost Prince by Julie Kagawa

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Let me start this review stating that I am not a big fan of books about the Fae. If you were to ask me why, I might have a bit of trouble putting into words exactly what is that I dislike, but I am not drawn about books with them as a focus. That is the reason that I still find myself so surprised that I loved this one and even more than after reading it, now I find myself adding the previous series to my TBR list.

The Lost Prince is the first book in a spin-off series of the Iron Fey series and it was one of those welcome surprises for me. Well, a book about the Fae that I like? That's always a surprise for me!

Ethan is the main character in this book and with his dislike of the Fae I think we connected great right from the start! He is a teenager and his perspective was written so well. He's full of angst and prejudiced against the Fae due to his experiences in the past and how he feels he has lost her sister to Them. He has the Sight, but has become an expert on ignoring Them and protecting himself and his family, or so he thought. He is angry at the Fae and at the world and has built a persona that keeps everyone at arm's lenght so they can't get tangled with the Fae.

At the start of the book he is starting in a new school and things start going south very early on. With a reputation partly undeserved and his own desire to push people away, things aren't easy for him. And despite all his precautions, he finds himself in the middle of Fae affairs, and not only that but someone has decided that they want to get to know him. That someone is none other than Kenzie, a girl that won't take no for an answer and that manages to push all the right buttons for him.

Ethan and Kenzie end up in the Nevernever, the Fae world, trying to hide from a new and nasty kind of faeries and there we encounter quite a few new characters (old friends for those that have read The Iron Fey books, of course) like the encounter with Grimalkin. He is a talking cat that reminded me so much of the Chesire Cat in Alice in Wonderland! Elusive, irritating and so very cat-like! Meghan as the Iron Queen and still being very much Ethan's sister, Ash, Puck... it was a pleasure meeting them all for the first time, and I felt quite drawn to read their stories. I guess for fans of the original series it must feel different and they might want more from their fave characters, but I'm quite happy I jumped into this spin-off as I did, cause I can appreciate all the new characters more.

Keirran was quite a shock for Ethan, since despite being his same age, he's Meghan & Ash's son and so his nephew. He also became an ally even if he had his own agenda. There seems to be more to Keirran than we see at first, and despite his good guy presence, there's something disquieting about him.

There's adventure, there's romance and it's the slow burning one and so it is quite a great first book that not only introduce us to a new world but also stands well on its own with plenty of action and an incomplete resolution to the problem of the Forgotten Fey.

A great first book and very much deserving of 4 stars!





View all my reviews