CBR3 Book 23: "Iron Crowned" by Richelle Mead

Publisher: Bantam
Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 3 stars
Date begun: March 24th, 2011
Date finished: March 25th, 2011

Standard introductory spiel about this being part of a series here, it's part three, in fact. This review will therefore probably contain some spoilers for the previous two books in the series. If you're thinking of starting with book one, you want to try Storm Born.


Eugenie Markham has started coming to terms with being the daughter of the legendary faerie Storm King, and is even getting used to ruling her own faerie kingdom, the Thorn Land. She's not entirely keen with the amount of time she has to spend there, as it cuts into her day job of being a shaman who banishes ghosts, spirits, faeries that have crossed over to the human world and so forth, as that's what pays her bills in the human world. Her roommate is starting to get annoyed with her, as is her assistant, who spend more time sniping at each other over the phone when Eugenie's not there to take her calls in person. She's enjoying her relationship with Dorian, King of the Oak Land, rather a lot, but they both find it a bit wearying that warriors keep showing up pretending to have killed Eugenie.

Most of all, Eugenie want to make peace with Queen Katrice of a rival land (who is naturally pissed because of the events at the end of Thorn Queen. Dorian and Eugenie's forces are tied up in what looks to be a long, gruelling and time-consuming struggle, and every day, more innocents die. When a seeress comes to Eugenie and tells her about the legendary Iron Crown, which is so difficult to get hold of that simply winning it is enough to terrify other Faerie rulers, she sees a way in which to end the conflict without further bloodshed. But because the crown is hidden in an area suffused with iron, Dorian won't be able to go with her, and she has to take her ex-boyfriend Kiyo as help instead.

I enjoyed the first two books in the series, but in this one, Eugenie made some decisions that annoyed the heck out of me. She acted like an irrational, spoiled teenager, not the mature and fairly reasonable woman she's shown herself to be in the past. She does a complete turn around on decisions she made in previous books, and makes a pretty rash and stupid decision, in my book. That said decision will have wide reaching consequences in later books is inevitable.

I like Dorian, and he doesn't pretend to be anything other than he is. I think Eugenie treats him appallingly in this book and that he's far too good for her. I hope he doesn't regret his decision towards the end of the book. I'm also hoping that after Kiyo's actions towards the end of this book, he's out of the picture for good. It would of course have been wonderful if Eugenie could be a strong and capable woman who manages on her own, without the support of a man at all, but as love triangles seem to be a staple of paranormal fantasy, I doubt that's going to happen any time soon.

This book was a bit of a let down, but I know from experience that Richelle Mead's series occasionally have ups and downs, and they tend to end up being mostly enjoyable, so I'll give the next book a chance and hope she makes it all better again then.

CBR2 Book 87: "Thorn Queen" by Richelle Mead

Publisher: Bantam
Page count: 480 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Date begun: September 28th, 2010
Date finished: October 1st, 2010

WARNING! CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR STORM BORN, THE FIRST BOOK IN THE SERIES!

At the end of the last book in the series, Eugenie Markham, shaman and most-feared killer of faerie and other Otherworld beings, managed to defeat the not very nice King of the Alder Land, and through some trickery from Dorian, King of the Oak Land, became Queen of the now renamed and reshaped Thorn Land. Instead of a lush and medieval rural setting under the Alder King, the land shaped itself to Eugenie's whims and wishes, and is now a warm desert-like land, with cacti and high humidity, very different for all those living there. There is a prophecy that states that the heir to the daughter of the Storm King will wage a devastating war on the humans, and the gentry will defeat them. Eugenie's half-sister is on the run, more than happy to be the one who gives birth to said heir.

So Eugenie has to deal with her newly discovered half-fairy heritage, and that her father wasn't some run of the mill gentry lord, but the most powerful fairy king around, with amazing weather powers. She needs to find her half-sister before said sister gets herself knocked up and proceeds to give birth to some war chief, and she needs to get used to the idea that she is now a Fairy Queen. Kiyo, her half-human boyfriend, is not happy with her growing control of her rather scary weather magic, and the amount of time she has to spend in her Kingdom, which is directly affected by her moods and feelings. But since she IS queen, and discovers that her people are starving, unable to grow crops in their radically changed land, and that several girls have been disappearing, she has no choice but to spend more time in the Otherworld, and get more familiar with her duties. Besides, Kiyo has to spend rather a lot of time with his ex-girlfriend, who is expecting a baby.

Just because her sister is off somewhere willing to bear an heir, does not make Eugenie less desirable as a consort. She still has to fight off gentry who want to rape her, and there are powerful gentry who would like her as their lover, hoping to father the Storm King's successor. One of those men is Dorian, but Eugenie has trouble trusting him after he manipulated her into taking control of the Thorn Land. Yet with Kiyo gone a lot, a bunch of missing girls to find, and weather magic she needs to learn to control, it's hard for her to avoid him.

Things take yet a surprising turn towards the end of this book, and I will be very interested in seeing where Richelle Mead takes the story next. Eugenie, Kiyo and Dorian all continue to develop as interesting characters, and as the love triangle appears to be resolved by the end of this book, I'm pretty certain it's not going to be dragged out over the course of the series. The next book is out in March, and I look forward to reading it.

CRB2 Book 85: "Storm Born" by Richelle Mead

Publisher: Bantam
Page count: 512 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Date begun: September 26th, 2010
Date finished: September 28th, 2010

Eugenie Markham is a shaman, which means that she has powers to banish faeries, spirits, ghosts and other otherworldly beings to either the Underworld or the Otherworld. The faeries, or gentry, live in the Otherworld, where there are a number of different kingdoms. Eugenie has been trained for this since she was a teenager, by her stepfather, another powerful shaman. She uses the name Odile Dark Swan when she communicates with the non-human beings. But lately, more and more of the otherworldly beings know her true name, and a lot of them seem to be making really creepy come-ons to her.

She is hired by a rather mentally unstable young man to find his sister, who he claims was abducted by a powerful gentry. Since human girls captured by faeries are coveted for their fertility, and the girl is only a teenager, Eugenie reluctantly agrees to help the guy, even though he seems like a bit of a whack-job. She then finds out that the gentry that kidnapped the girl is a gentry king, and that her best chance to rescue the kid is by forming an alliance with Dorian, King of the Oak Lands. She is reluctant to trust anyone non-human, even more so when she finds herself really attracted to him. She also has to figure out the identity of the mysterious man she met in a bar and had a hot night with, and why the scratches he left on her back won't heal.

With the first book of the Dark Swan series, I have now tried all three of Richelle Mead's paranormal fantasy series. Her Vampire Academy books are a half-guilty pleasure of mine, and there's still enough that I enjoy about her Succubus books that I keep reading them, even when a couple have been a bit underwhelming. One of the things she does very well, is world-building, and the world she describes in this series is fascinating. Some of the story is set in the "real world", but it's the parts in the Otherworld that are particularly well done. With a number of different Fairy kingdoms, all with very different rulers, and a geography that seems to constantly change, not to mention the many interesting types of gentry there appear to be - this was a good read.

Eugenie is a strong and capable heroine, like so many others in paranormal fantasy. She is very good at her job, and not afraid to do unpopular things if it gets the job done. She has been raised with a very strong work-ethic by her stepfather, and feels very ambivalent about the gentry, especially after she spends more time in the Otherworld and gets to know more of them.

The supporting cast are all well done, as well. I especially liked Dorian, King of the Oak Lands, although Eugenie's room mate, who pretends to be a Native American, and Kiyo, the half-Hispanic/half-Japanese mystery guy she runs into, are also cool. I really enjoyed, but was not very surprised by, some of the revelations and developments in the books and will absolutely be picking up the second book in the series.