Series: Elfhame #4
Release Date: January 3rd 2023
Publisher: Hot Key Books
Pages: 368
Find it on: Goodreads. BookDepository. Waterstones.
Source: I ordered a copy of this from Book Depository
Rating: 4.25/5 stars
Synopsis
A runaway queen. A reluctant prince. And a quest that may destroy them both.
Eight years have passed since the Battle of the Serpent. But in the icy north, Lady Nore of the Court of Teeth has reclaimed the Ice Needle Citadel. There, she is using an ancient relic to create monsters of stick and snow who will do her bidding and exact her revenge.
Suren, child queen of the Court of Teeth, and the one person with power over her mother, fled to the human world. There, she lives feral in the woods. Lonely, and still haunted by the merciless torments she endured in the Court of Teeth, she bides her time by releasing mortals from foolish bargains. She believes herself forgotten until the storm hag, Bogdana chases her through the night streets. Suren is saved by none other than Prince Oak, heir to Elfhame, to whom she was once promised in marriage and who she has resented for years.
Now seventeen, Oak is charming, beautiful, and manipulative. He’s on a mission that will lead him into the north, and he wants Suren’s help. But if she agrees, it will mean guarding her heart against the boy she once knew and a prince she cannot trust, as well as confronting all the horrors she thought she left behind.
Review
The Stolen Heir was one of my most anticipated releases for 2023. The Cruel Prince trilogy is one of my favourite YA series of all time and I was really excited to return to the world of Elfhame. The story is full of magic and adventure, but for me, I didn’t fall in love with it quite as much as I did The Cruel Prince.
The Stolen Heir tells the story of Suren, once the child queen of the Court of Teeth, she has been exiled to the human realm. She spends her time foraging in the woods, releasing mortals from their bargains with the fae and longing to return to the human family she once lived with. When Suren runs into Bogdana from the Court of Teeth, she is saved by Prince Oak, heir to the throne of Elfhame. Oak requires Suren’s help in a dangerous quest to rescue his father, but doing so will take her back to the Court of Teeth and the life she left behind. Will she survive returning to that deadly place and can Prince Oak really be trusted?
There was lots about The Stolen Heir that I really enjoyed. Holly Black really is the queen of faerie and I love her writing style and the way she brings this world to life. While the story did feel a little slow in some parts, overall it was engaging and compelling enough that I ended up reading half the book in one sitting. There is a reveal that happens at the end of the story that I guessed pretty early on, but I am nonetheless very intrigued to see where the story will go in book two.
Suren is probably what made this book for me. She’s a really interesting and complex character, dealing with a harrowing childhood and just trying to find her place in the world. I liked seeing her relationships develop with the other characters in the story and I can’t wait to see where the story is going to take her. Overall this a fun, entertaining read, full of Black’s trademark writing. If you’ve read The Cruel Prince series and are intrigued by this one I would definitely say it’s worth picking up.
Today for Waiting on Wednesday I wanted to talk about Queen of Nothing by Holly Black – the third and final book in the Folk of the Air trilogy. I had planned to leave this one until later in the year because the book was due for release in 2020. However with the update that Queen of Nothing has been brought forward for a November release – I couldn’t help but get excited that we are only a few short months away from the conclusion of this series. With the exception of reading The Spiderwick Chronicles as a kid I’ve never read anything by Holly Black until I picked up The Cruel Prince but I absolutely fell in love with her writing style and the magnificent world that she’s built. I know The Cruel Prince has a lot of divided opinions but it is honestly one of my favourite series. I’m sad that it’s going to be the last book but I’m dying to know what’s going to happen next. The first two books have ended on major cliffhangers so I have no idea how it will all turn out. This series is full to the brim with magic, betrayal and the best characters. If you haven’t picked it up yet I’d definitely recommend binging the first two books in the series. 
This is such a perfect book. I couldn’t put it down and I definitely didn’t want it to end. The Cruel Prince is the first in a new series from ‘Faerie Queen’ Holly Black, and I can totally see why she deserves that name because this book is so stunning. Books about the Fae are not something I read particularly often, though I recently read An Enchantment of Ravens and really enjoyed it. With that in mind I decided to give this a go, and boy was I not disappointed.
I’m pretty sure that’s all the review you need but I’ll attempt to go into a little bit more detail. The Wicked King is the second instalment in the Folk of the Air series. This is already a massively popular series and book one – The Cruel Prince – was on everyone’s best of 2018 list (including mine). Going into The Wicked King I had a certain amount of trepidation – what if it’s all filler and suffers from second book syndrome?
The Bibliophile Chronicles 