Name: Court of Bitter Thorn
ISBN: 9781732458888

Kay L Moody

Faerie wasn't supposed to be real. Elora dreams of adventure. When a fae prince shows up, she laughingly enters a bargain with him. Now she's stuck in Faerie. But her younger sisters depend on her for survival, and she'll do anything to get back to them. Even if it means destroying half of Faerie.

Court of Bitter Thorn

Beth Livingston

If you like Holly Black's Folk of Air series then you will enjoy this book. In Court of Bitter Thorn we meet a fiery mortal Elora and a very handsome Fae Prince Brinnick. The story kept my attention all the way to the last page. I'm giving a 3 out of 5 stars. The story had good emotions and plot. I did have some trouble understanding the Fae world but other than that it's a good read.I received an advance copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.Thank you BookSirens for my copy!

Heather Killeen

Rating: 2.5/5 glamoured swords 

Format: Paperback. I’d like to thank the author and Marten Press for sending me a copy of the book (along with a map and print!) in exchange for an honest review. 

To sum up: 
Elora has a secret desire, to compete in a tournament and best any man with her sword. She has trained with her father for years, but society has barred her from competing. She longs for adventure but is set to marry a man she does not love in order to protect herself and her sisters. When tragedy strikes (damn you blood moon!), a beautiful stranger appears with a bargain. If he helps her collect a bushel of apples to feed her sisters, she will come to the land of fairie with him and help him secure a throne. She accepts and finds herself completely swept up in the beauty and foreign world of the courts of fairie. As Elora grapples to understand this new world, she also starts to realize that what she thought was another choice taken from her, might be her grandest adventure yet.

What I enjoyed: 
Elora is a fierce and sassy girl who is easy to relate to. She wants to protect her sisters, but she also wants adventure and a grander purpose than marriage. I love a good portal fantasy, and I thought the world of the fae was intricately detailed and fun to read. This story checks all the boxes for fae lovers as far as common (and beloved) tropes go, so lovers of fairie probably won't be disappointed!

What was meh: 
A lot of the writing felt amateurish for me. It could be the style I had issues with, but there seemed to be a lot of repetition and overflowing descriptors where they weren't needed. These things continued to grate on me despite me generally liking the characters. I also found the plot, while having a lot of the tropes and features common to this genre, was predictable in a lot of ways. Elora is a begruding tourist of fairie and is determined to hate her fae captor (EXCEPT HE'S SO BEAUTIFUL etc, etc). I generally just found this tiresome and wished the author pushed the genre further rather than just spooning up what I've read (or rather, stopped reading) a hundred times before. Lastly, while plenty of things were hinted at, there are still many mysteries left at the end of the book which I found frustrating. I was hoping we would get more answers in this installment and the book ended at a sort of peculiar point. 

Overall, while the characters and the world were fun, I had a lot of issues with the writing style and plot. I'd recommend to fans of Throne of Glass and ACOTAR since this was likely heavily inspired by those works.

Court of Bitter Thorn

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