Holly Black

The Stolen Heir

Anna Stewart

Fear is not love, but it can appear much the same. 

Aimee :)

Cassidy Nolan

Lieke Nieuwlaat 

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

Inés

Another girl might have frozen, but I am cold all the way through.

With him, I am forever a night-blooming flower, attracted and repelled by the heat of the sun.

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

Anika P

He moves as though he expects the world to bend to his will 

, which her sister had, nice people who came to visit and looked like her, and who sometimes brought over grandparents or doughnuts or presents. 

She had wished for birth parents of her own, but she had never thought that her wish could conjure a nightmare like this.

“You will not always be so small or so frightened,” she told me. “You are a queen.”

Prince Oak, heir to Elfhame. Son of the traitorous Grand General and brother to the mortal High Queen. Oak, to whom I was once promised in marriage. Who had once been my friend, although he doesn’t seem to remember it.

Oak brings his fingers to the side of his face and draws them back with a wince. He has three long slashes there, bleeding sluggishly. 

When his gaze returns to me, there’s something in his expression that reminds me of his father, Madoc, who was never so happy as when he went to war.

“Next time you’ll remember not to drop your guard,” the knight says, observing the wounds on Oak’s cheek. 

“My vanity took the worst of the blow,” he says. 

“Worried about your pretty face?” the knight asks. 

 too little beauty in the world,” says the prince airily. “But that is not my area of greatest conceit.”

At seventeen, he has grown tall, towering over me, lithe and finely muscled. His hair catches the moonlight, warm gold threaded with platinum, bangs parting around small goat horns, eyes of shocking amber, and a constellation of freckles across his nose. He has a trickster’s mouth and the swagger of someone used to people doing what he wanted.

It isn’t that mortals can’t be pretty—many of them are—but their beauty doesn’t make you feel pummeled by it. I feel a little pummeled by Oak’s beauty. 

If I look at him too long, I want to take a bite out of him.

“Lady Wren,” he says, amber eyes like those of a fox meeting mine directly. “If I undo your bindings, may I rely upon you to neither attempt escape nor attack one of us for the duration of our time in this house?” 

The prince gives me a quick, conspiratorial grin. My mouth betrays me into returning the smile. It makes me recall how charming he was, even as a child.

“Yes,” I say, as though there was ever a choice. My voice doesn’t break this time. “I’ll go with you.” 

After all, Lady Nore ripped away everything I cared about. It will give me no small pleasure to do the same to her.

He looked upset at the sight of me. He ought to have been taught better than to let his emotions show on his face. Instead, he assumed that others would 

 about his feelings, so he didn’t bother to hide them.

“My sisters were telling fairy tales,” Oak said. “They fell asleep, but I didn’t.” 

 about his reasons for coming here, but his words gave me a strange, sharp pain in my chest. After a moment, I recognized it as envy. For having sisters. For having stories.

Oak winked at me, and I wondered if he was brave because he didn’t understand the danger he was in.

“Have you ridden before?” he asks me, and I return him the look he deserves. 

In the Court of Teeth, I was instructed on almost none of the things that a child of royalty ought to know. I was barely taught to use my own magic, leaving me as I am, with weak spells, poor etiquette, and no familiarity with faerie horses. 

“No? And yet you would look so well with your hair whipping behind you,” Oak says. “Wild as the Folk of old.”


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.

What a plot twist! I did not expect that AT ALL. 

I feel like I should rate this book higher, because it was very good, but I found myself not drawn to reading it. As soon as I started, I felt like I couldn’t stop but, in between, I wasn’t really thinking about it. 

I do think the world-building is incredible, and I will definitely read the next book. 

Emilia Vulliamy

What a plot twist! I did not expect that AT ALL. 

I feel like I should rate this book higher, because it was very good, but I found myself not drawn to reading it. As soon as I started, I felt like I couldn’t stop but, in between, I wasn’t really thinking about it. 

I do think the world-building is incredible, and I will definitely read the next book. 

I was honestly not that excited to read this when it first came out - I love Carden and Jude so much that I just wasn’t interested in Oak at all. HOWEVER - lol this definitely exceeded my expectations. I loved being back in Holly Black’s world, and was pleasantly surprised to see it was all from Wren’s pov. There were some twists and turns and ultimately, a really well-written YA novel which I usually struggle to enjoy. Can’t wait to read the sequel!

Katie Allard

But I guessed the ending 🥲, and didn’t like the way it went, a bit too dramatic. 

Taryn

Juppp loved it.

But I guessed the ending 🥲, and didn’t like the way it went, a bit too dramatic. 

On to part two ✌️.

౨ৎ | ‘sometimes it feels as though there's a knot inside me, and were it to come apart, whatever emerged would be all teeth.‘

i loved this book so much. the way holly writes is so beautiful and i found myself so immersed in this world. 

wren can do no wrong, she is my favourite girl ever. and i can’t wait to see her evolve more in the next book. 

oak was okay, i mean i liked him but he didn’t give much and i get the faerie deceive but he annoyed me a lot LMAO. 

i LOVED the side characters too and i hope we get more of them in the prisoners throne. 

anyway all in all, wren is baby and i will support whatever she does!!

౨ৎ | ‘sometimes it feels as though there's a knot inside me, and were it to come apart, whatever emerged would be all teeth.‘

— ★ 5/5

i loved this book so much. the way holly writes is so beautiful and i found myself so immersed in this world. 

wren can do no wrong, she is my favourite girl ever. and i can’t wait to see her evolve more in the next book. 

oak was okay, i mean i liked him but he didn’t give much and i get the faerie deceive but he annoyed me a lot LMAO. 

i LOVED the side characters too and i hope we get more of them in the prisoners throne. 

anyway all in all, wren is baby and i will support whatever she does!!

it was pretty good! the plot twist at the end got me and it definitely made me want to read the second book. the rest of the book was a touch slow though. 

Maddy T

not the turn that I expected this duology to take, but okay

Taylor Grace

Cici Pearson

I have an Elfhame bias so take my rating with a pinch of salt. I just love this world and how Holly Black writes fae. It’s both witty and darkly humorous. I’m not as attached to the characters in this duology as much as The Cruel Prince but it was still a good time. 

Mel 

I actually like this Oak story better than the original trilogy if I am being honest. I think Holly Black is settling into storytelling now that the world is built. 

Apiecalypse Jen

I've put off reading this book since the day it came out, and now that I've read it, I can't believe I've denied myself of it for so long. I haven't reread tfota in a while, so maybe it's not as good as the original trilogy, but I was so impressed by this book. Something about being back in this world filled me with so much glee and whimsy it's crazy. Holly Black's pen is truly unmatched. In her true fashion, I knew there would be a betrayal, but I wasn't quite prepared for the scale of it, even if I should've known better. Wren is so captivating, and her struggles are so relatable despite not being made from snow. I was also pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed Oak. He has so many crazy layers to him that I wasn't expecting based on seeing him as a kid. The plot kept moving, and I was trying to figure out where things would go wrong the whole time. I'm so glad I finally read this because it feels like it might move up to favorite status. Idk I just love this world, and I would probably read anything if I got to see it again, but this felt special. It is familiar yet totally different in its own way.

lena

#1 New York Times bestselling author Holly Black returns to the opulent world of Elfhame in the first book in a thrilling new duology, following Jude's brother Oak, and the changeling queen, Suren. A reluctant prince. A runaway queen. And a quest that may destroy them both.

I HAVE TO WAIT TO SEE WHAT HAPPENED JWJFIWU37E8Q77×7$<+&×*'8H3EHFJJD2H3U

I love being back in Elfhame, and seeing Oak older and just as clever and charismatic as both Cardan and Jude, it’s wonderful. i love how he’s grown and seeing him take things into his own hands now that he has the power. can’t wait to see what’s next for him and Wren! i love her sm and she deserves the world. 

star girl✨

4.5/5 rounded up <3

I honestly loved this so much. 

I think my one criticism (and it's something I feel with the original trilogy too) is that I wished plotlines went for longer !!!! I know this is ya and the books are short but I am always left wanting MORE. 

I love Wren and Oak and I definitely think they will be so much more fleshed out in the sequel and I love the new stuff we learned about faerie and I love their relationship it was a breath of fresh air. 

And I'll be honest sometimes reading spin-offs can feel like reading the original work in a different font but I did not feel that way at all this was great!

** spoiler alert **
           4.5 stars 

ms holly black never disappoints

devoured this and got me out of a terrible book slump

now i see what people meant about jude and cardan being pissed at wren

as much as i'm on board for a villain arc, i fear wren may be in trouble and also that perhaps the betrayal was not as big as it was made to seem by the prisoners throne summary BUT i understand why she was pissed and did what she did. i support woman's wrongs 🫶🏻

speaking of wren, absolutely adored her. my favorite type of fmc and as much as she talked about being traumatized, it didn't annoy me the way it does with other characters (looking at you juliette shatter me). i love oak as well despite his betrayal and the fact that i still feel like i barely understand him, but i enjoyed the direction holly took with his character as an (almost) adult.

absolutely cannot wait to see jude and cardan in book 2

Greer Andersson

☆☆☆⋆
To be so real with you, I just don't care about these characters as much as Jude or Cardan. I was eating up every little mention of them. I do think Wren is a very interesting and complex character and think there is room for my appreciation of her to grow. 

Quite frankly though, I thought the pacing was a little odd and the middle of the book wasn't very interesting. I did really like the plot twist and the ending of the book, which pretty much convinced me that picking up the second book is worth it.

Will report back with my findings with that.

arwen

Ellie M.

This book was incredibly mindfucking in the best way I could think of and I cannot wait to have the sequel in my hands! Holly Black’s writing was entirely different in this book in comparison to when she wrote Jude and Cardan’s story and this still had the signature short number of chapters, but the length made it feel so slow-paced. Oak has surely grown up and well into the prince of Elfhame that his sister wanted him to become and Suren’s character is incredibly complex yet loveable at the same time. I’m excited to meet Tiernan and Hyacinthe in the next book as well! The Stolen Heir will truly put you on edge because of the build-up of the tension. You simply just don’t know what’s going to happen next so the ending really fucked me up. I need The Prisoner’s Throne NOW with a judecardan cameo <3

Helena

4.5* 
i loved it. i love the betrayals in her books and her world and characters and everything. chef’s kiss.

2.5 stars! 

 ‧₊˚ ⋅𐙚 spoilers are hidden 𐙚 ‧₊˚ ⋅

i don't know if it was me or the pacing was too slow. i think it was the reason why it took me quite a while to read it. i somewhat ended up being bored even though i know that the author tries to make the reader become familiar with the new characters. it is criminal to compare but there are times where i thought that this book and the cruel prince's plot is strikingly way too familiar. 

moreover, i felt that the story only begun on the last few chapters. the action and the pace began to pick up when (view spoiler)[wren, oak, and tiernan got caught by lady nore. (hide spoiler)] it was kind of shocking to learn that oak changed a lot after nine years. like, that is my baby!! (ó﹏ò｡)

overall, it was nice revisiting the world of elfhame. i wouldn't give much detailed review of this because i would like to see how the characters would develop in the prisoner's throne.

now, onto the next book ! ٩(ˊᗜˋ*)و ♡

not as good as the original trilogy, but still really good! can’t wait to read the next one

sophie bastow

Brionna Palm

love love love holly black and how she writes. i was excited to read this asap after finishing the folk of air series and even though i wasn't As Hooked reading this one, i still couldn't put the book down... i loved loved loved loved learning more about Suren after she was introduced in the folk of air books and then seeing Oak all grown up... i kept forgetting he has hooves instead of feet ... i cant believe he's just a lil guy.... anyways i'm starting the next book as we speak

Wow was really not expecting that ending!

Hannah Williams

A Novel of Elfhame, from the author of The Folk of the Air series

Z♡ 

3.5★
i can’t help but compare this to the original trilogy. while i still enjoyed the adventure they were on and the tension between Wren and Oak, the stolen heir feels like one long introduction to the prisoners throne. i look forward to reading it, though!

The Stolen Heir

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