Book Review | The Darkest Part of the Forest | Holly Black

Book Review | The Darkest Part of the Forest | Holly BlackThe Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black
Published by Little Brown BFYR on January 13, 2015
Genres: Faeries, Fantasy YA, Young Adult
Pages: 328
Format: Hardcover
Source: Bought it
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four-stars

Children can have a cruel, absolute sense of justice. Children can kill a monster and feel quite proud of themselves. A girl can look at her brother and believe they’re destined to be a knight and a bard who battle evil. She can believe she’s found the thing she’s been made for.

Hazel lives with her brother, Ben, in the strange town of Fairfold where humans and fae exist side by side. The faeries’ seemingly harmless magic attracts tourists, but Hazel knows how dangerous they can be, and she knows how to stop them. Or she did, once.

At the center of it all, there is a glass coffin in the woods. It rests right on the ground and in it sleeps a boy with horns on his head and ears as pointed as knives. Hazel and Ben were both in love with him as children. The boy has slept there for generations, never waking.

Until one day, he does…

As the world turns upside down, Hazel tries to remember her years pretending to be a knight. But swept up in new love, shifting loyalties, and the fresh sting of betrayal, will it be enough?

[Read more…]

Waiting on Wednesday | Court of Fives | Kate Elliott

Waiting on Wednesday

Court of Fives: Court of Fives #1 • Kate Elliott

Book Cover Court of Fives Kate Elliott

In this imaginative escape into an enthralling new world, World Fantasy Award finalist Kate Elliott begins a new trilogy with her debut young adult novel, weaving an epic story of a girl struggling to do what she loves in a society suffocated by rules of class and privilege.

Jessamy’s life is a balance between acting like an upper class Patron and dreaming of the freedom of the Commoners. But at night she can be whomever she wants when she sneaks out to train for The Fives, an intricate, multi-level athletic competition that offers a chance for glory to the kingdom’s best competitors. Then Jes meets Kalliarkos, and an unlikely friendship between a girl of mixed race and a Patron boy causes heads to turn. When a scheming lord tears Jes’s family apart, she’ll have to test Kal’s loyalty and risk the vengeance of a powerful clan to save her mother and sisters from certain death.

So I’ve never read any books by Kate Elliott. I feel like this is very wrong of me. But I’m really looking forward to dipping my toe into her catalog with her debut YA, COURT OF FIVES. It sounds kind of like a Roman gladitor-ish thing, with racial overtones and schemes and CLANS. CLANS! I’m really ready for this book NOW.

COURT OF FIVES comes out August 18, 2015 from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Court of Fives Kate Elliott