Allison Rose

Fly Free

Kerri McDonald

Thank you to Storytellers on Tour and the author for providing me with a free copy of the book in exchange for an honest review!

“You should never let someone else tell your story.”

We all know I love fantasy. It has always been and will probably always be my top genre. That being said, the amount of faerie stories I have read are surprisingly few! I tend to gravitate more to epic battles and complex magic systems. Yet I also love a good fantasy that has a lot of political intrigue and, from what I’ve heard of faeries and faerie courts, this promised to have a good dose of it! So I went into this book curious and hopeful.

Well, I went into this looking for a twisty tale and I was not disappointed. The drama, y’all! Though I would not survive a day at faerie court, I loved getting wrapped up in the intrigue. There were plots buried under plots and I thought the author did a great job of making the web tangled but plausible. It definitely kept my interest and made the pages fly by! I needed to know what was going on, who was double crossing who, and what the motivations were behind it all. It was political intrigue with a lovely dash of magic and I really enjoyed it.

Another aspect of this book that I loved was the world-building. I found myself captivated by the world that the author created! She does a fantastic job of building this fantasy world and all the inherent rules that come with it. It made it so easy to fall into the book and lose track of time as I explored the world with Sevelle and Jae, our two main characters. I wanted to know everything there was to know about their magic, the blight affecting the faeries, and the rebels fighting against the Court! I honestly could have used a little bit more but this is the beginning of a series, so I understand that we can’t get all the answers straight away. Still, this book definitely pulls you into the world as you read and I loved it!

As for the characters, Sevelle and Jae were most definitely the strongest of the entire cast. The author does a great job of building them up and developing them as we progress through the story. I found myself becoming rather attached to both of them, which made for a frustrating read, at times, when they would make some incredibly bone-headed decisions, lol. Still, I could understand their motivations and they had a lot of depth, which I appreciated. The love interest(s), however, fell a little flat for me. They were pretty one-dimensional and it honestly felt like they were there just as plot devices. I didn’t really get a sense of their personalities because they didn’t seem to have any. I wonder if this is because we’re focusing on Sevelle and Jae’s character arcs. Either way, I wish they had been fleshed out a little more. That being said, some of the best lines from the book came from Lex, one of the love interest and the son of the rebel leader, so I gotta give him brownie points for that 😉

I think my absolute favorite part of this book, though, was the ending! The story moves at a fairly quick pace, which makes it quite an easy read, and the ending has one of those cliffhangers that doesn’t make you want to throttle someone, lol. It wrapped up the story in such a nice, if not neat, way that leaves you satisfied but also eager to continue the story. I love when an author is able to achieve that fine balance!

Final thoughts: This is a twisty tale with quite a bit of political intrigue within a magical faerie court. There is drama, there is adventure, and there is a coming-of-age story that will keep you invested from page one until the very end. Though the love interests fell a little flat for me, our two main characters, Sevelle and Jae, are fascinating to watch throughout the story. They have a lot of depth and I found myself completely intrigued by their growth and development. I think if you’re a fantasy lover that likes faeries, politics, and hard choices, you’ll enjoy Fly Free!

Fly Free

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