Month: Jan 2020

Jude was only seven years old when a mysterious man turned up on her and her families doorstep and murdered both of her parents. The man who murders her parents then stole away Jude and her two sisters to live in the High Court Of Faerie. Ten years later Jude is desperate to fit in the world of Faerie, except she’s always considered the bottom of the heap because she is mortal and human. Jude somewhat befriends the future King of Faerie and finds herself tangled in the world of trickery and deception within the palace. Jude soon realises that she needs to risk her life to save Faerie from crashing down around them.

This book has been out two years now and probably for the best part of those two years I have been repeatedly told to read this book. You know when your to be read pile gets too big so you don’t buy many books but then when you do its always a latest release you got excited about so never buy the older books you want to read? This for me was that book! With Christmas money I finally caved and bought this book and now I’ve finished it I instantly regret not purchasing it sooner!

When I started to read this book I wondered what all the hype is around it. It’s been a while since I read a fantasy novel and I’d somewhat forgotten how long it takes me to get into a new world. However, within a few chapters this book got me hooked so much so I finished it within a few days of starting it! It is completely worth sticking with this book and I think the slow moving beginning is important for you to get to grips with the world and characters.

The world is so wonderfully explained and you can imagine every single palace and the world itself quite vividly very quickly. I found it particularly good when Jude was creeping around areas she shouldn’t be in. It’s interesting that this world is just a stones throw away from the human world and that Jude and his sisters can literally just fly to enter the human world for a visit.

A big part of what makes this book so good in the characters. Every character your introduced to is likeable which is strange considering the entire what through you aren’t sure who you can trust and who you cant. You follow the story through the eyes of Jude and after her tragic beginning you expect her to maybe be a little dysfunctional so it comes as no surprise that she longs to be accepted into this new world she’s now apart of. I found Jude completely likeable and it was interesting to read about how she’s treated by other characters and how she views them.

The storyline too is fantastic. It keeps you on your toes very early on. The story has twists all over the place and I think if you asked me what I thought would happen when I started I wouldn’t have guess the ending. The story was quite intense too and really did keep you held in suspense from start to finish. I also liked the odd bit of romance that was weaved into the story, it is predominately a fantasy novel but I did enjoy the potential love interest as a sub plot.

As you can tell I loved this book! Thankfully this book has two more in the series so you can bet I’ll be downloading them straight onto my Kindle!

Synopsis – 

Of course I want to be like them. They’re beautiful as blades forged in some divine fire. They will live forever.

And Cardan is even more beautiful than the rest. I hate him more than all the others. I hate him so much that sometimes when I look at him, I can hardly breathe.

Jude was seven when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years late, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King.

To win a place at the court, she must defy him – and face the consequences.

As Jude becomes more deeply embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, she discovers her own capacity for trickery and bloodshed. But as betrayal threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.

Luna Lark has had a tough time in life since her husband to be left her jilted at the aisle. She’s not been able to shake off her sadness since, so she decides to escape to Ondingside in order to write her new novel. A remote village in Scotland in the middle of nowhere that is home to just one hundred and fifty residents seemed the perfect place to escape. The perfect place that is until the little village gets a freak snow storm in July which freezes the town.

Before you read on, this blog post contains some slight spoilers so if you want to read this book and don’t want to know anything stop reading now!

This book…where do I begin! The opening chapter where Luna was left standing outside the church on her wedding day with the horrible realisation that her husband to be wasn’t going to turn up – I had such high hopes for this book from this. I thought it was going to be the type of romance novel where a bad event happens to a character and then they found love again in an unsuspecting place. However, this was not really the case. I went into the book pretty blind to the plot and I admit that I just wanted to read it as I really like the author Carrie Hope Fletcher, so the fact the plot went in a different direction to what I expected was my own fault for not reading the blurb.

My main real issue with the book happened relatively early on as I was so utterly confused during the beginning of the book. I read a chapter and then the chapter repeated again with some slightly different changes and it took me to the third time that I read the same story again that I realised that it was something to do with the plot and not some printing error in my copy of the book. It was during this point where the days were repeating that I was close to abandoning ship on this book. Personally, for me it was just too repetitive and I got quite bored of reading the same day where the character did the same things, again and again and again! Yes, the main character did go through some progression as a person as she kept on repeating the days but for me it wasn’t enough and it was just an effort to get through it. I do truly get what the author was trying to do by repeating the days especially when all the characters are blissfully unaware of the day reoccurring, but I really think it could’ve been done in a quicker way that didn’t make the reader loose interest.

I have no real feelings towards the characters. Usually in a book I find something relatable in them and that is what gets my attention but none of the characters were relatable for me. Although the characters go through a little development it’s hard for them considering that none of them can remember the day before. I think I didn’t go on enough of an adventure with any of the characters considering it was just seeing them living the same day in slightly different ways. I didn’t care what happened to any of them and I wasn’t routing for the potential love story to happen. Strangely one of my favourite characters was someone who was introduced further on in the story, you read a little of his backstory before he entered the village and shook things up. He had spirit and something about him compared with the two dimensional characters living in the village.

Once you manage to get past this however and the story starts to move on from the looping day I did find myself enjoying the story. It was interesting to read how the characters react to the realisation they were living in a never ending looping day with no memory of the day before. I quite enjoyed how the end wasn’t quite the happily ever after you expect from a book of this genre either. However, the ending didn’t resolve many of the plot points and I’m now left with quite a few unanswered questions that I would very much like the answer too.

If the first half of the book was as good as the first half this book could’ve genuinely been good. I did like the plot idea, I just wished it had been executed better. I am a big fan of the author and I do think she’s talented, plus her other books have been ok, just for me I sadly didn’t get on with this book.

Synopsis –

The BRAND NEW NOVEL from Sunday Times bestselling author Carrie Hope Fletcher, coming October 2019.

‘Reminded me so much of Cecelia Ahern’ Ali McNamara
‘Our go-to for spellbinding stories with a magical edge’ Heat

*****
Luna Lark used to love her name, but that was before people started saying it differently.

I’m so sorry, Luna.
Are you alright, Luna?
Everything will be okay, Luna.

Now Luna is taking back control by starting again in the most remote place she could find: Ondingside, a magical little town with barely a hundred and fifty people in the middle of nowhere important. She’ll finally finish her latest novel, get herself back to normal, maybe even find love (and continue being a hopeless romantic).

But on her first night in Ondingside a freak July snow fall freezes the town. Snowed in, the town stands still. Can Luna break out of the monotony and do what she came to do?