


Maas’ ACOTAR does not count for specific reasons that I will not get into right now - and that was Holly Black’s The Cruel Prince earlier this year.

I have only read one proper faerie book - Sarah J. And it was a perfect autumn read to boot. It’s a good thing I was in a corner alone because I kept snickering to myself and often had a smile on my face. I had a day to myself and devoured almost three quarters of this in a random Starbucks. The world-building, the magic, the finite details, the writing as a whole utter perfection. This was everything I wanted in a faerie book. Because secretly, her Craft represents a threat the fair folk have never faced in all the millennia of their unchanging lives: for the first time, her portraits have the power to make them feel. Now both of their lives are forfeit, unless Isobel can use her skill as an artist to fight the fairy courts. Their alliance blossoms into trust, then love-and that love violates the fair folks’ ruthless laws. Waylaid by the Wild Hunt’s ghostly hounds, the tainted influence of the Alder King, and hideous monsters risen from barrow mounds, Isobel and Rook depend on one another for survival. She paints mortal sorrow in his eyes-a weakness that could cost him his life.įurious and devastated, Rook spirits her away to the autumnlands to stand trial for her crime. But when she receives her first royal patron-Rook, the autumn prince-she makes a terrible mistake. They crave human Craft with a terrible thirst, and Isobel’s paintings are highly prized. Isobel is a prodigy portrait artist with a dangerous set of clients: the sinister fair folk, immortal creatures who cannot bake bread, weave cloth, or put a pen to paper without crumbling to dust.

A skilled painter must stand up to the ancient power of the faerie courts-even as she falls in love with a faerie prince-in this gorgeous debut novel.
