The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh
Ahdieh gives us one of a slew of recent stories inspired in some way by the Arabian Nights, and it’s a strong one. Teens who know a bit about the frame story of Scheherazade will love the twist Ahdieh puts on it, while those completely ignorant of it will have no trouble becoming invested. Shahrzad’s best friend was killed by eighteen year old Khalid, the Caliph of Khorasan, after he took her as his wife. He has taken dozens of wives and none of them has survived beyond the morning after their wedding day. Shahrzad intends to become his next wife – but not his next victim. Instead, she plans to take revenge. Readers will know from the beginning that Khalid is not the murderer he is believed to be – a prologue gives this bit away, so it’s meant to be known – but unraveling just why the girls all end up dead and how (if) Shahrzad can put a stop to it is great fun to read about. It’s also a romance, of course, which is also not unexpected, but it’s a good one. The setting is especially well-drawn (the food!). This is a solid story with lots of appeal.
The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black
I’ll confess something: I have never read anything by Holly Black before this. But immediately upon starting it, I was struck by the level of craft apparent; it’s obvious why she’s so highly-regarded. This novel is one of the best-constructed I’ve read in a while, and I found myself marveling frequently at how neatly and effortlessly the story built, layer upon layer. Hazel and Ben live in Fairfold; so do the fairies. The human inhabitants know that the fairies are mostly benign and will only hurt those who don’t follow the rules – tourists, mainly. And if a Fairfold resident is harmed or killed every once in a while, well, they were probably doing something they shouldn’t have. But then the horned prince who has rested in the glass coffin in the middle of the forest wakes, and the Fairfold citizens seem to be fair game. Is the prince, whom both Hazel and Ben thought themselves in love with when he slept, behind it? It’s difficult to give a pithy plot description for this book, because it has a lot going on. Hazel and Ben once hunted fairies, Ben was cursed/blessed with a knowledge of fairy music as a small child, Hazel once made a terrible bargain with one of the Fair Folk, one of the teenage boys is actually a Changeling that the human family decided to keep, and so on. There’s a really rich background to the story, and it all feeds in to the main plotline featuring the horned prince. Fairfold is so well-realized and the characters so well-drawn; fans of urban fantasy and stories about often-malevolent fairies should snap this one up.
Crimson Bound by Rosamund Hodge
I loved Rosamund Hodge’s first book, Cruel Beauty, to pieces. I loved her writing and her complex plotting and how the book was familiar (fairy tale influenced) yet managed to take me by surprise, too. Crimson Bound is the same – it’s Little Red Riding Hood, but darker than even the original story. That’s something I love about Hodge’s writing: she’s not afraid to give her characters real darkness. Her protagonist in Crimson Bound is a murderer, a girl who has been given terrible, unwanted gifts due to a mistake she made as a young teen. She hopes to atone by finding the sword that could destroy the evil threatening her country, but she’s haunted by what she’s done, what she’s capable of doing, and what she wants to do – as well as what she is becoming, something even worse than what she is. This is a fairy tale mash-up and retelling, a quest story, and a romance (of sorts) all in one, but none of those threads coalesce in a way you’d expect, a hallmark of Hodge’s storytelling. Go into this one without knowing a huge amount of the plot and prepare to be whisked away.
