Review: The Lost Sisters (Novella) (Folk of the Air #1.5) by Holly Black

I became addicted to YA fantasy over the summer holidays and discovered Holly Black after reading The Cruel Prince, which I loved. The Lost Sisters is a companion novella to The Cruel Prince, so you really need to have read that one first to appreciate it.

Jude and Taryn are twin sisters, of human parents, who have ended up living in the world of the fae after being kidnapped by their step-father. Both have very different tactics to survive this strange new world, tactics that are often in conflict with their sister's. Both crave respect from the fae; is power a way to achieve this?

As this is a novella, it's hard to say more about the story without giving away the plot. So I'll just say that whereas The Cruel Prince was from Jude's point of view, this story gives Taryn's version of events. 

I did enjoy it but this is really one for existing fans of the series - something to keep us going until the next book in the series, The Wicked King, comes out in January 2019. If you can't wait that long, Holly Black's other books - Tithe and Ironside - are set in the same world and some of the characters reappear in The Cruel Prince.

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Review: The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

Review: The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

After discovering YA fantasy over the summer, I have had a lovely time catching up on authors' backlists. I've particularly enjoyed reading Holly Black's urban fairy stories. Each one is set in the same world yet mentions characters from her other books, so  it's like catching up with old friends. The Darkest Part of the Forest is a standalone, so you don't need to have read her other books to enjoy it - which is lucky, because I seem to be reading them backwards!

In the forest outside the town of Fairfold is a glass casket containing a sleeping faerie prince. He's been there for as long as anyone can remember and has become quite a tourist attraction. Ben and his sister Hazel find him fascinating and long for him to wake up ... but the sleeping prince isn't the only faerie creature in the forest.

I loved this story because it took several well-known fairy tales and turned them on their head (Snow White, Kate Crackernuts, etc). I thought it great that it was a prince in the glass casket who needed rescuing and, although there is a bit of a romance, the characters don't necessarily end up with who you think. I loved the way the inhabitants of Fairfold had long since become used to supernatural creatures straying over their boundaries, and the hapless tourists who took selfies of themselves with the prince, but usually ended up becoming faerie fodder!

Recommended for anyone who loves YA fantasy and fairy tales with a dark, urban twist.