Dec 23, 2010

Review--The Iron Daughter by Julie Kagawa

Half Summer faery princess, half human, Meghan has never fit in anywhere. Deserted by the Winter prince she though loved her, she is prisoner to the Winter faery queen. As war looms between Summer and Winter, Meghan knows that the real danger comes from the Iron fey--ironbound faeries that only she and her absent prince have seen. But no one believes her.

Worse, Meghan's own fey powers have been cut off. She's stuck in Faery with only her wits for help. Trusting anyone would be foolish. Trusting a seeming traitor could be deadly. But even as she grows a backbone of iron, Meghan can't help but hear the whispers of longing in her all-too-human heart.

Julie Kagawa's sequel, The Iron Daughter, totally lives up to The Iron King I think! It was an incredible and amazing read!! I leave behind my world of dark shadows, vampires and werewolves, and enter the Faery world and find myself loving it! There's danger and excitement at every turn!

We start off with Meghan returning to the Winter court as she promised she would to help explain the events that took place since her flight from the party last. But no one believes her story about the Iron fae. And when she turns to Ash for help, he scorn her and mocks her when she tries to plead with him. Meghan is taken aback by his sudden change of heart and wonders if he even really cared for her. She feels totally betrayed.

The adventure doesn't truly begin until the scepter that controls the changing of the seasons is stolen from the Winter court. Mab is infuriated and declares war on Summer, believing it was them who stole the scepter from her court, but Meghan knows the truth and when she tries to explain, she is once again not believed.

After a daring escape Meghan soon finds herself on the run with Ash on a mission to find the scepter, but Ash has different ideas in mind that don't comply with Meghan's. And when Puck suddenly appears healthy and well, things begin to get really intense.

When the journey should begin the following morning, Puck and Meghan find Ash gone, and Meghan is heartbroken, but knows she must move on and find the scepter before the war begins. Finding the scepter is vital, but they will need more help than they realize on this mission.

I will cut off here before I get into a play by play of what happen, because everything was so exciting! While it may have not moved as quickly as I described it was still rather well paced, maybe a bit slow in the beginning, but once the escape begins the pacing becomes really good in my opinion. Even in the somewhat "slower" moments when Meghan and Puck find themselves waiting for the next clue.

And boy were there a few surprises in this one!! First off, as the BOC eludes to, they gain help from an unlikely source, someone we've met before. And no it's not Grim, but the cat does come back! I love him! He reminds me of the Cheshire cat, which I do believe was intentional in some ways.

And I can't really go into the other surprises, but think back to the first book and the memory Meghan had to give up. The one she doesn't know she did. I had a fairly good guess as to what it was and I was right. This memory loss situation thing--hard to name it without naming it!--comes back into play!

The romance was still more romantic tension, although there are a few kisses here and there with Meghan and someone...;)  Yes, the love triangle becomes more noticeable this time around. And because of that, I really won't get into more details about the romance.

The storyline was extremely good! And still mysterious, for now there is a new Iron King, but no one know who he is. Enemies, both old and new come forth and I have a few suspicions about this and that about the mysterious Iron fey, but won't know until I read the next one, The Iron Queen!

Overall I give the book a 4.9/5, and I really won't get too mathematical about these ratings, just that I want to give this one a little better than 4.5, for it was truly magnificent, but the beginning as I said, was just a touch slow, but still rather interesting! This was still by far a GREAT read!! I'm really liking this series!

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