Review: The Iron Queen by Julie Kagawa

In less than twenty-four hours Meghan Chase will be seventeen. Although, technically, she won’t actually be turning seventeen. Having spent the past year in Faery gives her the benefit of not aging.

However, Meghan’s been banished from Faery for choosing her dark prince, Ash, over the will of her powerful father, Oberon, King of the Summer court. Now Meghan, her winter prince and prankster best friend Puck try settling into a normal human life, first near New Orleans and later in a magical cottage provided by Leanansidhe, Queen of exiles. But her time in this makeshift home, and more important her time with Ash, doesn’t last as the feys of Summer, Winter and Iron courts soon track them down. She thought they’d left Faery behind forever, but pressing matters cause the three exiles to be summoned to war.

A new alliance is made, along with a few contracts, of course, and Meghan, half Summer faery princess, half human, is pressed to choose Fey over her mortal beginnings. Will she abandon her human heart for an iron will that will help her survive?

For as Meghan Chase can confirm—in real life, unlike books, faery tales don’t
necessarily have happy endings. (from netgalley.com)

As with the first two books in Julie Kagawa's Iron Fey series, The Iron Queen doesn't disappoint. This is a compelling YA series and The Iron Queen in particular is written with a light but deft hand; the romance doesn't get too sappy and the action is exciting but not overwhelming. It is all too common these days for YA romances to become heavy-handed and Bella and Edward-ish and so for this series - which does have a love triangle - to manage to avoid all that is impressive. Also, Ash is way cooler than Edward. (Pun totally intended.)

The Iron Queen picks up shortly after the end of The Iron Daughter. Meghan and Ash have been exiled from Faery and are wondering what they're going to do with themselves when they are thrust back into the war with the Iron Fey. There is still a false king leading the opposition and he is winning. The iron glamour is spreading throughout Faery like a cancer and it is only a matter of time before Faery is completely fouled. The summer and winter courts ask Meghan to do the impossible a second time: kill the Iron King.

I can't say this enough: the concept behind this series is so unbelievably cool. Julie Kagawa is telling a story that we should all listen to: technology is taking over the planet and we're going to be sorry one day. Environmental politics aside, The Iron Queen is clever, sad, and sweet. I absolutely can't wait for The Iron Knight, book four and written from Ash's perspective. Here's hoping for next summer!

The Iron Queen will be out on January 25, 2011.

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 thought 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, iron-bound 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 alone 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. (from juliekagawa.com)

This is my first ebook review for NetGalley.com. The Iron Daughter picks up right after The Iron King, repeating a bit from Kagawa's short story, "Winter's Passage." Meghan is on her way to the Winter Court, to face Queen Mab and the unknown. What will the Winter Queen do to Meghan and how long will she make her stay? It's part Romeo & Juliet, part Labyrinth, and part any coming-of-age teenage flick. It's got a high school formal dance and everything.

I realized something early on in The Iron Daughter - even though I like her, Meghan can be annoying at times. I had to keep reminding myself that she's an innocent and naive yet brave teenage girl who has been sucked into Faery politics and that you can't help who you fall in love with because she was getting on my nerves with all her boo-hooing over Ash. Her emotional rollercoaster over Ash got old pretty quickly. After I got past that, this book was a fun read because once it got rolling, I couldn't put it down.  This time, instead of searching for her little brother, Meghan and her group are searching for a scepter, a powerful relic that Winter and Summer pass back and forth to bring about their seasons. The scepter is stolen by some Iron fey to start a war between the Winter and Summer courts and to bring power to a pretender trying to become the new Iron King. Along the way we meet Leanansidhe, who hides a connection to Meghan in her household. Ironhorse is back too.

I loved the ending and couldn't see it unfolding any other way (I'm such a sucker for endings like this). Meghan's choice between Ash and Puck is no surprise but it makes me wonder what will happen to Ash if Meghan ends up becoming the Iron Queen? It seems like that will be a certainty as the third book is titled The Iron Queen. Will Puck still help her or become her enemy? I can't wait to see Meghan stand up to her father as a powerful individual in her own right. The Iron Daughter comes out on August 1, 2010.

Title? What Title?

It's just after noon on Thursday and I'm still in my jammies. I am parked on my favorite spot - the couch - and have absolutely no plans to move anytime soon. It's hot today, fog up your glasses and scramble your brains hot, and so I've decided that no parts of me will be going outside today. I keep yawning because I was up until three last night, finishing up some reviews and reading Julie Kagawa's short story "Winter's Passage." Let's hope I don't scare the UPS man too badly later on.

If anyone has been paying attention to my Read in 2010 page, they would be able to tell that even though I have Dark Road to Darjeeling as the book I'm currently reading, I've been reading other things instead. Obviously, I've pretty much stalled with that one. I read ninety-some pages last week and none since and I'm starting to get a little scared of it. It's not grabbing me like the first three did and I find that upsetting. I will finish it within the sixty days I have before it expires but for now, I'm leaving it alone.

I am really starting to get excited for NYCC in October. I trolled through the sites of my favorite authors and learned that not only will Jim Butcher and Sherrilyn Kenyon be there but Seanan McGuire will be too! Woot! Anton Strout too although I've only read (and really liked) the first in his Simon Canderous series, Dead to Me. I plan to take beaucoup pictures and get as close as I can to James Marsters and Katee Sackhoff without getting arrested. I also plan to take my laptop with me to NYC so that I might do writeups on the con each night instead of leaving it until I'm home and have thus forgotten everything I did and/or saw. *snort* Yeah, we'll see about that one.

I'm starting The Iron Daughter today and me being me, I had to read them in order. I really liked "Winter's Passage" and thought it was the perfect length to fill in any gaps between books one and two, thereby removing the need to start Daughter off anywhere but the Winter Court. "Winter's Passage" is all about Meghan and Ash and their journey from Meghan's home at the end of The Iron King where she agreed to leave with him in order to fulfill her promise that she would go to the Tir Na Nog, the Winter Court, and keep her end of their bargain that they made in King. Ash is reluctant to take Meghan there at best but orders are orders and if it's not him, then the Queen would send someone else who may not be so nice. Meghan is still trying to figure out what's going on between her and Ash, who goes from being really hot to icy cold in a blink. Does he actually care for her or is he just playing with her for fun? Let's hope I find out in The Iron Daughter.

One last thing. The other day, I bought the blu-ray set of the first six Star Trek movies and have since watched them. They are some of my all-time favorites but I can't believe I'd forgotten how utterly horrible Star Trek V - The Final Frontier is. Looking at some of the reviews on Netflix for this steaming pile of crap, I was amazed how many people defend it and Shatner, the genius director. It has a completely different feel from all the other original crew movies and reaches a whole new level of cheesiness. What a difference a director makes, eh?

Review: The Iron King by Julie Kagawa

MEGHAN CHASE HAS A SECRET DESTINY - ONE SHE COULD NEVER HAVE IMAGINED…

Something has always felt slightly off in Meghan's life, ever since her father disappeared before her eyes when she was six. She has never quite fit in at school…or at home.

When a dark stranger begins watching her from afar, and her prankster best friend becomes strangely protective of her, Meghan senses that everything she's known is about to change.

But she could never have guessed the truth—that she is the daughter of a mythical faery king and is a pawn in a deadly war. Now Meghan will learn just how far she'll go to save someone she cares about, to stop a mysterious evil no faery creature dare face…and to find love with a young prince who might rather see her dead than let her touch his icy heart.

Bravo to Harlequin Teen for publishing this surprising book. Bravo to them again on the beautiful cover - can you believe how gorgeous this book's cover is? I bought this book back in February when I went to B&N to get the new Deanna Raybourn just because I loved the cover so much. I finally got around to reading it the other day and noticed that it seems as if everyone is also reading (and reviewing) this book lately. 

I recently saw a review for it on Writings Of A Wicked Book Addict (obviously a kindred spirit - click HERE to read her review) and would like to reiterate one of her points: this book would be a wonderful companion for students to read along with Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Really, teachers should add it to their booklists as it compliments Dream with a contemporary YA vibe that would appeal to teenagers. I'm certainly no teenager, thank God, and even though Shakespeare makes me cross-eyed I certainly enjoyed The Iron King. It's a modern fairy tale, less urban than Holly Black's fab Faerie trilogy and a little more wholesome but no less compelling. I would like to note that as a fan of Rob Thurman's Cal Leandros series, I was delighted to see a less adult version of Robin Goodfellow in this book. Puck goes from being a pervy used car salesman in Nightlife to a smitten high school student/royal bodyguard in The Iron King while not losing the best parts of his personality. Awesome.

It was pretty obvious yet sneaky the way Julie Kagawa manages to fit in a cautionary tale about technology and where it's going in both our world and in Faerie. In the Iron King's lands, acid rain actually will burn holes in you and rats become your best buds. Tech becomes something like what you'd see in The Terminator or The Matrix or (God help me) in Transformers, where ordinary conveniences have been turned into an absolute nightmare. Halting the progress of the Iron King's damage to Faerie has become priority number one to Meghan Chase and her friends and which I assume will continue in The Iron Daughter, Kagawa's second book, out on August 1st.