Book Review :: The Stolen Heir by Holly Black

The Stolen Heir by Holly Black
ISBN: 1471411370
Series: The Folk of the Air #4
Also in this series: The Cruel Prince, The Wicked King, The Queen of Nothing, How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories
Published by Hot Key Books
on 3 January 2023
Genres: Fairy Tale, Magic, Young Adult
Pages: 356
Source: Allen & Unwin NZ
Goodreads

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.

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What is The Stolen Heir by Holly Black about?

The Stolen Heir by Holly Black follows Suren (or ‘Wren’), the heir to Court of Teeth and her return to the land she once fled from and to people whom she used to know so well.

Eight years after the Battle of the Serpent, Lady Nore has taken back the Ice Needle Citadel and is using an ancient relic to create monstrous creatures of ice and snow. When we meet Wren, she has fled to the mortal world and now lives in the forest, still haunted by the cruel torture she faced at the Court of Teeth.

When she’s saved by Prince Oak of Elfhame from the storm hag Bogdana, he asks for her help on a mission that takes him north. The journey forces Wren to confront all the terrors she thought she left behind, guard her heart against the prince she can’t trust, and protect her people from the horrors of the Court of Teeth.

My thoughts on The Stolen Heir

First things first: it was so much fun going back to the land of The Cruel Prince and the lands and stories and characters that Holly Black created all those years ago. As my poor attempt at a synopsis (and the actual synopsis!) reads, this story takes place eight years after the final in The Folk of the Air series, so while the characters are not all the same, there are some that were in the past series, and adventure enough to make it feel familiar.

“He’s the kind of beautiful that makes people want to smash things.”

There isn’t too much plot; it’s actually quite short of a story, especially if you eliminated some of the longer scenes or cut them short (which seems like an obvious statement, but if you’ve read it then you’ll get it). It actually did take me a while to get into this book. Or rather, I read the first third really quickly, struggled to pick up the second third and then rocketed through the last bit.

Unsure if that was the pace of the book or if it was simply me, but there we have it.

“Sometimes life gives us the terrible gift of our own wishes come true.”

I thought we’d meet Jude and Cardan as older characters in this book, but we didn’t (they were mentioned though). This was all good and dandy, and I think they may show up in the next one. I’m looking forward to seeing where our new characters go in the next story, as, like many Holly Black books, the end was a bit of a curve ball.

It’s not quite The Cruel Prince (which apparently I never wrote a review of), but it was a really fun read and I am looking forward to the second in the duology, The Prisoner’s Throne.

Have you read The Stolen Heir by Holly Black? What did you think?

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Thank you to Allen & Unwin for this review copy. This does not affect my review, and all thoughts and opinions are my own.