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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\u2019s on a mission that will lead him into the north, and he wants Suren\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
my opinion<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Holly Black isn’t an author that draws me in easily. I always need an adjustment period with their books, mainly because their writing style is flowing a little bit differently and sometimes because they use language in a way that makes me feel like I missed something important. Reading their books always feels like figuring out a puzzle while the characters are going through the same thing. maybe you could call it method writing? Either way I do need more of my brain cells to read their books. Reading The Stolen Heir<\/em> made me realize something important: I would absolutely die in Faerie. This mortal is not made for riddles or court shenanigans. It surprised me then that I had fun with Wren and Oak and might actually prefer their story over Jude and Cardan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Wren is someone who is often referred to as ‘feral’ in the text, which I found quite fitting and surprisingly adoring. Wren isn’t someone to be adored generally speaking, but reading about a protagonist who falls a little outside the norm, who hasn’t healed from their past trauma and reacts accordingly felt fresh, in a way. Oak on the other hand wasn’t so easily to understand, but I did like him better than Cardan, because he didn’t mistake bullying for caring. Oak has quirks of his own, since Faerie etiquette is pretty much the polar opposite to human etiquette but he never was more cruel towards Wren than he had to be. His position as heir to the high court put him in difficult positions throughout the book and always made his encounters a balancing act, which in turn made Wren distrust him constantly, but the added thrill for sure kept me reading. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Every time I feel as though I know him, it seems there is another Oak underneath.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The plot itself is easy enough to understand, a quest through Faerie to sneak into a castle to rescue a prisoner. This comes with all the little road-tripping aesthetics you would expect, sleeping in tents, hauling up in abandoned buildings, escaping the one or other trap and some good old forced proximity. It was, all in all, delicious. It wouldn’t be a Holly Black book if there weren’t parts of the situation the characters got completely wrong and one twist in particular was kinda obvious to me, but having the characters work around that was exciting. So exciting in fact that I had to grab book two immediately, because the book had the audacity to end on a cliffhanger \u2013 one I didn’t see coming. My greatest weakness has always been my desire for love. It is a yawning chasm within me, and the more that I reach for it, the more easily I am tricked.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n Holly Black<\/strong> synopsis \u2013 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\u2019s on a mission that will lead him into the north, and he wants Suren\u2019s 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. my opinion Holly Black isn’t an author that draws me in easily. I always need an adjustment period with their books, mainly because their writing style is flowing a little bit differently and sometimes because they use language in a way that makes me feel like I missed something important. Reading their books always feels like figuring out a puzzle while the characters are going through the same thing. maybe you could call it method writing? Either way I do need more of my brain cells to read their books. Reading The Stolen Heir made me realize something important: I would absolutely die in Faerie. This mortal is not made for riddles or court shenanigans. It surprised me then that I had fun with Wren and Oak and might actually prefer their story over Jude and Cardan. Wren is someone who is often referred to as ‘feral’ in the text, which I found quite fitting and surprisingly adoring. Wren isn’t someone to be adored generally speaking, but reading about a protagonist who falls a little outside the norm, who hasn’t healed from their past trauma and reacts accordingly felt fresh, in a way. Oak on the other hand wasn’t so easily to understand, but I did like him better than Cardan, because he didn’t mistake bullying for caring. Oak has quirks of his own, since Faerie etiquette is pretty much the polar opposite to human etiquette but he never was more cruel towards Wren than he had to be. His position as heir to the high court put him in difficult positions throughout the book and always made his encounters a balancing act, which in turn made Wren distrust him constantly, but the added thrill for sure kept me reading. Every time I feel as though I know him, it seems there is another Oak underneath. The plot itself is easy enough to understand, a quest through Faerie to sneak into a castle to rescue a prisoner. This comes with all the little road-tripping aesthetics you would expect, sleeping in tents, hauling up in abandoned buildings, escaping the one or other trap and some good old forced proximity. It was, all in all, delicious. It wouldn’t be a Holly Black book if there weren’t parts of the situation the characters got completely wrong and one twist in particular was kinda obvious to me, but having the characters work around that was exciting. So exciting in fact that I had to grab book two immediately, because the book had the audacity to end on a cliffhanger \u2013 one I didn’t see coming. Should’ve expected that with Holly Black, but alas. My greatest weakness has always been my desire for love. It is a yawning chasm within me, and the more that I reach for it, the more easily I am tricked. Holly BlackThe Stolen Heir (The Stolen Heir Duology #1)356 pages (Paperback)Hot Key Books 2023<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":90,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[6,5,8,7],"class_list":["post-23","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","tag-book-review","tag-holly-black","tag-the-folk-of-the-air","tag-the-stolen-heir"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chaptersandscepters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chaptersandscepters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chaptersandscepters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chaptersandscepters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chaptersandscepters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/chaptersandscepters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87,"href":"https:\/\/chaptersandscepters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions\/87"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chaptersandscepters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/90"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chaptersandscepters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chaptersandscepters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chaptersandscepters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
Should’ve expected that with Holly Black, but alas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/chaptersandscepters.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/81xSl05tjtL-199x300.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
The Stolen Heir<\/em> (The Stolen Heir Duology #1)
356 pages (Paperback)
Hot Key Books 2023
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"