Summary:
Faerie wasn’t supposed to be real. Tricked by a fae prince, Elora is stuck in the Faerie realm far from her young sisters who depend on her for survival. Under the terms of her bargain, she can’t go home to the mortal world until Prince Brannick becomes the next High King. Or until he’s taken out of the running… Sabotaging Brannick’s chance at the crown will be much faster than helping him win. The fae prince may be charming, powerful, and wickedly handsome, but that won’t stop Elora from selling his secrets to the highest bidder. By day, she uses her master sword skills to train the prince, while ignoring her growing attraction to him. By night, she conspires with a rival king in a nearby court whose plans could destroy half of Faerie. If she gets caught, Brannick will kill her. But what’s life without a little bit of danger?
Thoughts:
This is my first time reading a book related to the world of Faerie. Before this, I have only heard about it but never gave it too much thought. Faerie is a mythical world full of people called Fae. They are usually described as very attractive and look similar to humans, with many magical abilities at their disposal. This world was presented in an interesting way, and there are many facets that are so different from the human world, such as the lack of emotions.
As a huge fan of strong female leads, then this book was perfect. Elora is a master sword fighter, yet the society she resides in looks down upon women trying to engage in activities that are associated with men. Her one dream is to fight in a tournament before she is married off to a wealthy merchant to save her family. Seeing how many struggles she had to endure, and her determination to be in control of her situation is applause-worthy and I have so much respect for her because of that. You could see that almost every action that she took was for her sisters or Prince Brannick, and this prioritization of other people’s happiness occurs often but is not talked about often. So, I am glad that this theme was brought up in this novel.
The pacing of this book was well done. Although the beginning felt a bit slow to me, it was easy to overlook since the first few chapters were detailing Elora’s life in the human world. The plot is very easy to follow and is not overly complex, and you are not overwhelmed by numerous details. Unfortunately, there is not as much romance as some people were expecting, but I was grateful for that simply because the love at first sight trope is not necessarily one of my favorites.
There are many aspects of this book that made reading it enjoyable and I am looking forward to the next book in the series. My overall rating would be 4 out of 5 stars.