The first in a series of five, we meet Feyre Archeron, a 19-year-old girl living in the land of Prythian. Feyre and her two older sisters, Nesta and Elain, are dirt-poor thanks to their father. They live in a ramshackle cottage near the border between the human lands and faerie lands. Nesta and Elain are less than helpful when it comes to providing food, or anything else for that matter. So, Feyre, the youngest, is forced to brave the cold winters and hunt for their food with a bow and arrows. Much like a medieval Katniss Everdeen. However, one day, Feyre is hunting her normal route in the woods when she comes across a gargantuan wolf. Now, to anyone else, this would seem like a stroke of good luck. To Feyre, it is terror incarnate. Wolves of that size never show up in the human lands. Which meant there was only one thing left to assume: this wolf was a faerie in animal form. Faeries were murdering, thieving, power-hungry bastards. With complete and total hate in her heart, Feyre fires two arrows into the wolf. The first, an ordinary arrow. The second, an ash arrow clean through the wolf’s eye. Satisfied with her kill, Feyre returns home with the doe she also shot, and the pelt of the wolf. Her sisters are stunned, but now they have food and money. Some time passes before another faerie arrives at the Archeron cottage. Though, arrive is a gentle description. A huge beast with horns and fur and gnashing teeth bursts through the wall of the cottage demanding to know who shot and killed the wolf. Feyre gives herself up for her less-than-deserving family and agrees to live out the rest of her life in Prythian with the beast. To Feyre’s dismay, she blacks out for the entire trip across the wall separating the faerie courts from the human lands and ends up in an elegant mansion in the Spring Court. Little does she know that her captor is actually the High Lord of the Spring Court, Tamlin. Enter Lucien. Right hand of Tamlin, son of the Autumn Court, and missing one eye, this fiery, toned little tart becomes Feyre’s very first friend in the faerie lands. But something is off about these two unsettlingly beautiful men. They both have masquerade masks stuck to their faces. Tamlin’s excuse for the masks and for the noticeable lack of people in the area is that a “blight” has plagued the lands and made everything sick. We’ll soon find out that the blight is actually a red-headed immortal Regina George named Amarantha. Between the time of Feyre’s arrival and just before the 50-year contract between Tamlin and Amarantha is over, Feyre slowly begins to fall in love with Mr. Wolf Man and his court. Unfortunately, Tamlin sends Feyre back to her village where she discovers that her sisters and father have moved into a much larger home and have been living extraordinarily well. Alas, Feyre is so emotional about Tamlin being forced to return to Amarantha’s court Under the Mountain, that she journeys back to the faerie lands with hopes to save him. This plan, of course, blows up in Feyre’s face once Amarantha discovers Feyre’s arrival. So, Feyre makes a deal with Amarantha. Either she passes three tests of Amarantha’s choosing, or she solves a riddle, and then Tamlin is free. But the riddle Amarantha presents makes no sense and Feyre is forced to endure the three tasks. Before the dreadful first task, Feyre meets a stunningly handsome man named Rhysand. Feyre instantly hates this guy. To her, he seems like an arrogant, bootlicking whore. After Rhysand shivers Feyre’s timbers, the first task arrives. The goal: Kill the Middengard Wyrm. A creature much like the Alaskan Bull Worm from Spongebob, only 10 times the size and 20 times more vicious. Feyre, like the bad bitch huntress that she is, successfully kills the Wyrm, but also gravely injures her arm during the process. Enter Rhysand, again. He arrives in her cell to discover Feyre is burning up with a fever that will soon kill her. So, he convinces her to make a bargain with him. One week in the Night Court every month in exchange for healing her arm. Warily, Feyre accepts the bargain. And so, the second task arrives. Feyre is in another pit of despair. Only this time, a cage. One half has Feyre in front of three levers. The other, Lucien, chained to the floor. Above them both, are boiling hot metal spikes that will crush them both instantly if Feyre doesn’t pull the right lever. In order to do so, Feyre must read the words above the levers. Thanks to her father, Feyre never received more than a second-grade level education. As she reaches for a lever, she feels an unbearable twinge of pain in the arm Rhysand healed. So, she reaches for another. Pain fills her arm again. When she reaches for the last lever, her arm doesn’t feel any pain at all. So, she pulls the lever and saves herself and Lucien in the brink of time. Before the third test arrives, Rhysand decides to have a little play time with Feyre and brings her out to the court where he dresses her like a hooker and drugs her with the faerie wine. This goes on for several days. Then the third task finally arrives. Before her are three hooded faeries, hands bound and hoods over their heads. Feyre’s mission? Stab all three of them in the heart. With nothing but hate for herself, Feyre stabs the first two faeries. The third one, horrifically, turns out to be Tamlin, but when Feyre stabs him, the knife hits stone. Tamlin’s heart was pure stone. And she did it. She beat the tasks. Freedom, right? WRONG. Amarantha uses Feyre’s lack of specification to her advantage and doesn’t free anyone, but Feyre, after stabbing the love of her life, finally figures out the riddle and utters the answer. Amarantha, enraged that Feyre actually figured it out, snaps Feyre’s neck. The end.
Just kidding! Feyre’s spirit is still holding on to some thread within her. Turns out, her thread is connected to Rhysand. Which Feyre can only assume is because of the bargain she made with him. So, with his power returned, Tamlin kills Amarantha. Watching through Rhysand’s eyes, Feyre’s limp broken body is restored and brought back by each of the High Lords who give up a kernel of their power to thank her for saving Prythian. So Feyre lives, returns to the Spring Court with Tamlin, and the rest? We’ll find out in book two.
My Review
I fell in love with this series when I was a teenager. I have been a fan of SJM for a very, very long time. I own all of her books and have read them numerous times. Personally, this book rests at about number four on my rating list for the ACOTAR series. It’s a great backstory for Feyre, Rhysand, Tamlin and the rest of Prythian, but it’s not quite stellar enough to overpower the second, third and fifth books for me. I think that Feyre’s backstory is phenomenal because she is a bad bitch. I also think that even in this book, Tamlin is an idiot, and he doesn’t deserve someone as kindhearted as Feyre in his life. Lucien does because he’s a real one. I am also immediately not a fan of Nesta or Elain because they come off as lazy cowards. Nesta is a sissy little snot, and Elain is just a wimp. They could never make me hate either of the sisters, but I definitely did not like them in this book. I give this book a four out of five stars.
What were your thoughts on this book? Leave a comment and keep an eye out for my R&S of book two!
