Lots of people have had bad childhoods, but Jude’s takes the cake: when she was seven years old, a green skinned stranger with big teeth showed up at her front door, murdered her parents and then kidnapped her, her twin sister Taryn and older sister Vivi. Turns out the stranger was her human mom’s jilted fairy husband Madoc, who came to retrieve his true child, Vivi, and ended up taking all three sisters back to his castle. Now a teen, Jude lives a weird sort of half life as a human in the land of Faerie. She is never fully accepted by the Folk, but far too steeped in the ways of the Fay to ever live happily in the mortal world. She spends her days training to be a knight and trying to escape the unwelcome attentions of Cardan, a spoiled fairy prince who finds Jude’s very existence offensive. But when a massive betrayal goes down in the royal family, Jude is given the impossible choice to either cut and run, or stay and fight for her place in Faerie. Holly Black deftly handles a huge cast of characters, all of whom Jude must carefully evaluate to decide if they are for or against her. Because if she trusts the wrong person, she may end up paying for for it with her life. Full of intrigue, romance, politics, and enchanting descriptions of fairy food, clothes and weapons, this sumptuous tome will delight both fans of fairies and mud bound mortals. The first book in a planned series, The Cruel Prince left me desperately wishing I could conjure up the sequel!
