Author: Alyxandra Harvey
Format: Paperback
Pages: 277
Genre: YA, Fantasy
Published (UK): 5th January 2012 (Bloomsbury)
For seventeen years, Eloise Hart had no idea the world of Faery even existed. Now she has been abducted and trapped in the Rath of Lord Strahan, King of Faery. Strahan was only meant to rule for seven years, as Faery tradition dictates, and then give up his crown to another. But he won't comply, and now chaos threatens both worlds.
The only one who can break his stranglehold on the Faery court is his wife. . . Eloise's aunt Antonia. Using Eloise to lure Antonia, Strahan captures his wife, desperate to end the only threat to his reign. Now Eloise must become the rescuer. Together with her best friends Jo and Devin, she must forge alliances with other Fae, including a gorgeous protector named Lucas, and Strahan's mysterious son, Eldric—who may or may not betray them
Strahan is coming to the end of his seven year reign. By tradition the faery king must give up his crown but he is refusing to do so. There is only one person who can make him; his wife, Antonia. Strahan takes drastic measures by kidnapping Antonia's human niece, Eloise. With her aunt coming to her rescue, Eloise is freed from the faery court but must in turn, with the help of her friends, rescue Antonia.
As a fan of Alyxandra Harvey's previous books, I had high expectations for this one. For me, however, it fell a little short. Dont' get me wrong, it's an enjoyable enough read and Harvey's writing is amusing and clever as ever, there was just a little something missing. I put it largely down to two things.
Firstly, I didn't feel that I connected with the characters all that much. There was nothing essentially wrong with Eloise and her friends Devon and Jo but compared to say, Lucy or Hunter from the Drake Chronicles series, they just weren't that interesting. Again comparing to the Drake books, the love interests weren't nearly as exciting either.
The second thing that missed slightly was that I felt the story could have had so much more detail. As a relatively short book, there was a lot to pack in and I felt like a lot of the background detail was left out. If this was the first book of a series then it would have been fine, but as I believe it's a stand-alone, then I'd have liked it to be longer and more in depth.
As a quick, fun read, this book is great and it's probably not such a bad thing that I wanted more from it.
