The Iron Knight : Review

Ash, former prince of the Winter Court, gave up everything. His title, his home, even his vow of loyalty. All for a girl… and all for nothing.

Unless he can earn a soul.

To cold, emotionless faery prince Ash, love was a weakness for mortals and fools. His own love had died a horrible death, killing any gentler feelings the Winter prince might have had. Or so he thought.

Then Meghan Chase—a half human, half fey slip of a girl— smashed through his barricades, binding him to her irrevocably with his oath to be her knight. And when all of Faery nearly fell to the Iron fey, she severed their bond to save his life. Meghan is now the Iron Queen, ruler of a realm where no Winter or Summer fey can survive.

With the (unwelcome) company of his archrival, Summer Court prankster Puck, and the infuriating cait sith Grimalkin, Ash begins a journey he is bound to see through to its end— a quest to find a way to honor his solemn vow to stand by Meghan’s side. To survive in the Iron realm, Ash must have a soul and a mortal body. But the tests he must face to earn these things are impossible. At least, no one has ever passed to tell the tale. And then Ash learns something that changes everything. A truth that turns reality upside down, challenges his darkest beliefs and shows him that, sometimes, it takes more than courage to make the ultimate sacrifice.

Sum­mary from GoodReads (here)
ARC provided from (the absolutely amazing) Harlequin Teen via NetGalley

Review

Title: The Iron Knight
Author: Julie Kagawa
Pub­lisher: Harlequin Teen (Harlequin)
Release Date: October 25, 2011 (Get it @ Ama­zon)
For­mat Read: Kin­dle ARC Edi­tion
Print Length: 400 pages
Series: The Iron Fey (Book 4)

The Iron Knight picks up roughly where The Iron Queen leaves off, with Ash determined to keep his vow to Meghan. Alongside him on this adventure, is Puck, as well as my favorite furry creature Grim. The Iron Knight tells the tale of Ash as he travels through the Fey to obtain the soul he needs to be able to join the Iron Kingdom. He discovers along the way that being human is not as easy as he thought it would be as he’s confronted by his past and forced to overcome great obstacles.

The Iron Knight did many things wonderfully, and one of them was make me furious! It is a rare book that can actually make me not just mad at a character, but feel an even more extreme emotion. As I read Iron Knight, I felt fury, heartbreak, laughter and joy, which is something I have not experienced since Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I laughed out loud more than once at Puck antics and Grim’s sarcastic remarks.

The Iron Knight is a fitting end to a wonderfully written series where we finally get to see how things are from Ash’s perspective, and get a true look into just how different the Fey actually are from human characters. Though I missed Meghan and her perspective into things, it was wonderful to see Ash and Puck interact without a real in-between. While the early half of the book often felt like it was just one battle after another, the latter half of the book evens this out with more emotional and introspective moments for Ash and the other characters. I loved seeing a few plot ends tied up, and giggled internally when I noticed a few being left wide-open for more books to take place in the universe.

Reading from Ash’s point of view really changes the perspective that you put on some of his actions in the earlier books. It’s always been easy for me to take Puck and Ash’s friendship lightly in the earlier books, because you never really see them do anything but fight. Iron Knight really shows you just how close Puck and Ash had been in the past, and just how heartbreaking it was for their friendship to be lost. There’s also more moments than I can count during Iron Knight where I just really wanted to bash Ash over the head for some of the things he thought. However, I also love when that happens, because it means I’ve fallen in love so much with the characters that I don’t want them to make the wrong choices. In this case, one of Ash & Puck’s companions on this adventure certainly turns everything on its ear in a way I know I never wished would happen!

For all these reasons, and oh so many more, I’d be hard-pressed not to recommend The Iron Fey series to anyone I knew.