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.
The Iron King is the first book in Julie Kagawa’s Iron Fey series. After much of the book blogging world was buzzing about this series, I decided to check it out.
This series is most assuredly a romance, but what I appreciated was that we were not “introduced” to Meghan’s lover-boy, Ash, right off of the bat. Kagawa gave her readers time to become acclimated to the faery world with Meghan along with the shifts that have come to her perception of reality. With Meghan’s mission to save her younger brother from a strange king (The titular “Iron King”), I was reminded almost irresistibly of The Labyrinth.
The faery world was very believable and it was obvious that a great deal of work went into constructing it. Likewise the idea of the creation of an Iron Fey race was very interesting to me.
I do wish that I had liked the characters a bit more though. I found Meghan to be a bit annoying in places. There were parts where I liked her: when she insisted on her own clothes to retain something of her home, when she finds her way back to Puck without anyone familiar left to guide her, but I wish that she had been able to save herself with all of the power she was reputed to have instead of constantly needing to be saved.
And then there’s Ash, who to be honest, I found utterly undeserving of swoon. He’s cold at first, seems quite inclined to kill Meghan at the slightest provocation, and though I do sympathize with him a bit later based on his past, I felt like their relationship was anything but justified. Just bang! out of nowhere.
However, I absolutely adored Puck. I loved his friendship with Meghan (and please God, don’t let it turn into a love triangle later) and his witty one-liners. I love how he is just so typically fae in some places. He was hands down my favorite character and to be perfectly honest, he’s a large part of the reason I’m planning to continue with reading the series.
Rating: 3/5. If you enjoy paranormal romances like Twilight, The Immortals, or faery YA, you may enjoy The Iron King.
