Mini review: The Iron King by Julie Kagawa

Title: The Iron King
Author: Julie Kagawa
Release date: 2011
Publisher: HQ Young Adult
Series: The Iron Fey #1
Genre: YA Fantasy
Source: Free copy via previous job

Description: 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.

My thoughts: I have friends who rave about the Iron Fey series by Julie Kagawa and I like stories that use celtic faery stories so I thought I'd give it a go. Megan lives in the USA, until her brother is kidnapped and she discovers that she can enter a faery 'underworld'. She decides she has to rescue him, but along the way becomes entangled in other plots.

I liked the story to some extent, but it felt very similar to many other young adult fantasy stories, and linked to that, very predictable. I don't really know what else to say about it apart form that, it was a very 'meh' book and a pretty quick read. I do have others in this series on my bookshelf already, and I might read them at some point, but I don't feel any urgency to do so, I'm not feeling excited to find out what happens next. There were fun bits in the book, the writing was alright, but nothing about it stood out to me. This is a 5/10 read for me.

Stacking the Shelves: February Book Haul part 1

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews as a way to share books you've received recently. 

Between things I've bought, been given, borrowed, and got from work, I've got quite a stack of books this month! I know we're not quite at the end of February yet but I'm going to break it into two haul posts and do the other one next week.

I went on a 'London Bookshop Crawl' a couple of weeks ago, visiting lots of independent bookshops, organised by Bex at An Armchair By The Sea. I was very restrained and came home with two books:

The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet, by Becky Chambers. I've seen so many people talking
about this book and loving it since it cam out, I had to give it a go. It's space opera, I'm a couple of chapters in and really enjoying it so far.







Vendetta, by Gail Z Martin. Second book in an urban fantasy series, the main character is a
psychometric who runs an antique shop and takes dangerous magical objects out of public circulation.




A couple more books I'm very excited about are:
Dumplin, by Julie Murphy. I've seen great reviews from a lot of US book bloggers about this, and it just came out in the UK. Hopefully I'll get to reading this one soon.






Beyond Ruin, by Kit Rocha. The latest book in the 'Beyond' series, this one is
an ARC and comes out on Tuesday. I'll be doing a release day post with a giveaway, so come back on Tuesday to enter!






And then there were these, which I don't know much about (with the exception of the Julia Kagawa books, which my friend Karen has been raving about for years), but they sounded good, and were in the freebie box at work:

My final book is one my Dad got me, and that's The Death Of Dulgath, by Michael J. Sullivan. It's book 3 of the Riyria Chronicles. I haven't read the rest of the series yet, but my parents (who got me in to reading fantasy in the first place) have all of his other books and love them. 

What books did you get recently? Have you read any of these? Don't forget to come back on Tuesday for the Beyond series giveaway!

~Ailsa