Friday Reads: The Iron Knight by Julie Kagawa!!

Hi there everyone! I'm gonna be starting this week's Friday Reads with the final book of the Iron Fey series, one that I'm glad that even if unplanned originally, Julie Kagawa decided to write! As the rest of the series it is part of my 2014 Series Challenge!

The Iron Knight by Julie Kagawa

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


After the terribly cruel and heartwrenching ending of The Iron Queen I jumped straight away to reading this one. I already knew how everything had to end, having read the spin-off series that take place a few years after these books, so I cannot imagine how awful the wait between books must have been!

As usual, expect spoilers for the previous books, but I will try my best to not spoil anything, which might make this review a little bit vague on occasion.

Meghan is now the Iron Queen and is working to make sure it doesn't destroy the rest of the Nevernever, but since it's still toxic for the rest of the Fey, she made the toughest decision ever, and sent Ash away from her. But Ash won't give up on Meghan without a fight, so he goes on a quest to find a way to be with Meghan on the Iron Realm with Puck, his best frenemie. There's a lot of history between this two, even before Meghan and the love triangle thing happend (and then got resolved) and we learn a lot more about it in this book. Along with Grimalkin to guide them, they start a quest to get Ash a human body and soul.

The journey starts with quite a twist very early on, one that left Ash, Puck and even myself reeling! I understand that it was necessary to a point to finally clear the air between Ash & Puck and to give Ash some proper closure, but boy was that upsetting!

They travel through the most dangerous parts of the Nevernever, the Wyldwood and the Deep Wyld, and the journey is one hell of a difficult one and once they reach their destination, it only gets even harder!

As with all these books, the world building was fantastic and very creepy, the pacing of the plot was great and the character development was spot on, this book was Ash's book and it showed cause it made me root for him in a way I hadn't even done before! That doesn't mean that other characters, new and old, don't get their own time, like my dear Grimalkin and the very awesome Big Bad Wolf! We also get a peek of a world changing event that has a lot of relevance in the spin-off series and that also extremely creepy!

Very well deserved 4.5 stars for this one!



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Mini Reviews: The Iron Fey novellas by Julie Kagawa!

I've said it before, and I won't tire of saying it, I really enjoy reading novellas. They're perfect read for those days when I really don't feel like reading a 200 or more pages book but still feel like reading a complete story. Today I'm reviewing the 3 novellas that are part of the Iron Fey series by Julie Kagawa.


Winter's Passage by Julie Kagawa

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This was a short novella to be read between the Iron King and the Iron Daughter, and it serves sort of a refreshing of how things are left. Meghan and Ash are on their way to the Winter Court but she asks for a small detour to make visit Puck to make sure he's okay. During their journey, they start being hunted by a dangerous monster.

This was a short novella and the main purpose might as well have been to introduce a character that we'll encounter in a later book and establish it as dangerous even to the Unseelie prince.

The relationship between Ash and Meghan is still a bit on an uncertain state still, and the fact that Meghan is keeping her promise to Ash, even though it is quite hard on both of them.

Even if this one wasn't the most amazing novella ever, it was a good reminder and a way to introduce a new character. All in all a 3 stars read.




Summer's Crossing by Julie Kagawa

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I actually read this novella right after the Iron Daughter instead of after the Iron Queen, so I was a bit confused about why Puck and Ash were on their quest, but I still managed to enjoy this one quite a lot.

It's a Puck POV story, and his voice is fantastic this time, he's such a fun character! Full of mischief but also extremely loyal and brave. So when he's torn between helping Ash or taking a chance to try and get him as a rival out of the way, he ends up being a good guy cause it also means he's gonna play one of the biggest pranks in history and do it under Titania's very nose!

It was very entertaining reading about him, ice-boy and Grimalkin, and the dynamics between them are always a lot of fun. Well deserved 3.5 stars for this novella, one that is a must for any Puck fan.




Iron's Prophecy by Julie Kagawa

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is the kind of novella that makes me glad I read it. It's something that any fans of the books would have wanted to read about and also gives us quite a bit of information that ties The Iron Fey with the spin-off series The Call of the Forgotten.

The ending of the Iron Knight was good and satisfactory but I wanted to see a bit more of the Iron Realm, Meghan more established as Queen and Ash being the king consort, or however that ended up working on, and not only I got that (that I'm sure was something a lot of fans of the series wanted) but also the explanation for that prophecy mentioned on the Lost Prince and the Iron Traitor (in the Call of the Forgotten series) and I really felt for Meghan and Ash when they got themselves with such an awful choice to make.

And after having read both The Lost Prince and The Iron Traitor, I'm really left wondering if that was the right choice and gives me even more food for thought of what might happen in the next book!

Well deserved 4 stars for this one.



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Friday Reads: The Iron Daughter by Julie Kagawa!!

Hey everyone! Friday is here and with it a new week's Friday Reads! I'm starting it with the second book in one series that was not originally in my 2014 Series Challenge but that has been added since it's now finished!

The Iron Daughter by Julie Kagawa

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The Iron Daughter stars right where The Iron King left us, so you can expect spoilers for the first book, as while most sequels. I will however try to keep the review as spoiler free as possible!

Meghan is now in the Winter court, being true to her word and learning how to deal with promises to the Fey. Life for her at Mab's palace is not easy at all, being despised and looked down on by most of the court. And she feels even worse cause Ash is ignoring her since they arrived, and he's back to his Unseelie Prince demeanor.

Then something happens that throws the Nevernever into disarray, with Winter and Summer preparing for war. Only Ash and Meghan know that the Scepter of Seasons wasn't stolen by the Summer court, but by the Iron Fey. Mab doesn't believe them so Ash and Meghan end up going on a mission to recover the Scepter on their own, with their usual allies aka Puck and Grimalkin. Seems like Grimalkin always has all the answers and knows all the way, but his answer it's always as enlightening as "I'm a cat". He really is favorite secondary character!

Meghan was a bit more irritating in the beginning of this book, all her doubts about Ash and her consequent self-doubt were a bit annoying after a while, even if I could somewhat understand where she was coming from. Still, it was a bit at odds with the strong and foot-in-mouth, go-into-things-head-first Meghan that we knew in Iron King.

Once the bigger action part of the book starts, Meghan changes her focus a bit and after some proper communication (this is a lesson I hope everyone will take from books, communication is key, don't just assume!!) with Ash, and meeting Leanansidhe for the first time (again for me, reading The Call of the Forgotten first has these consequences) with her redcaps and her human "pets" was quite a game changer right there.

I really liked Meghan training to feel less powerless or depending on others to save her, that attitude of hers is the one that makes me root for her. Something I really liked too was how in this book we see a lot of the Between, the Nevernever and the human world all mixed up. And I loved learning more about the Iron Fey and matching the new Fey to the technology counterparts of the human world.

The ending was quite interesting, with a certain finality to it, but also with so many uncertainities!

Even if I had some issues with Meghan for the first third of the book, this one didn't suffer from middle book/sequel syndrome at all and it's well deserving of 4 stars if only for the amazing world building and Grimalkin!



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