Book Review: Iron Queen

The Iron Queen

By:  Julie Kagawa

Publisher:  Harlequin Teen

Publish Date:  January 2011

Format:  Paperback 358pgs, trade size

Genre:  YA Fantasy

Series:  3rd book in Iron Fey Series; Book 1 ~ Iron King, Novella 1.5 ~ Winter's Passage, Book 2 ~ Iron Daughter

Recommendation:  If you have read the just the first book or even both of them, you HAVE to read this one!  The series grows stronger and stronger with each book.  And this one is top of the list.  Yes.

Book Synopsis:
My name is Meghan Chase.

I thought it was over.  That my time with the fey, the impossible choices I had to make, the sacrifices of those I loved, was behind me.  But a storm is approaching, an army of Iron fey that will drag me back, kicking and screaming.  Drag me away from the banished prince who's sworn to stand by my side.  Drag me into the core of conflict so powerful, I'm not sure anyone can survive it.

This time, there will be no turning back.

First Sentence:
Eleven years ago, on my sixth birthday, my father disappeared.

My Thoughts and Summary:
A year since her first step into the fey world, on the verge of her seventeenth birthday, and Meghan is returning home to her Mom, Step Father, and brother with Ash her love.  She's been gone nearly a year now and she's nervous.  Being in the 'real' world now Meghan realizes the things she needs to do and worries about Ash fitting in.  But before entering her home she is snagged in a thin wire net by three small Iron fey.  The False Iron King still wants her.  And here Meghan realizes she can't go home just yet as the False Iron King will not stop coming for her or her loved ones.  As Meghan goes through she learns there is more inside her than she knew.  And will have to make some very important choices.

This is the third book of the Iron Fey trilogy, but not the last.  This book has Meghan completing the tasks she wants to tend to and we get answers to many questions and thoughts we were left with: Meghan's memory she gave up, her father, her love.  Meghan decides she needs to learn to control both her fey powers, and does this in the only safe spot for exiled fey and from the Iron Fey, Leanansidhe's.  Which she has questions for anyway.  The question of Meghan's memories she gave up, she goes to get back.  In doing so we learn more of the forbidden love between fey and humans.

In learning about the difference between the fey and human, or immortal and mortal, Meghan starts to worry about her and Ash.  Her being mortal and him immortal, and what happens when an immortal finally passes from the world.  By the end of this book we learn more of Ash and his history.  And why he is so determined to protect Meghan, to the death.

Meghan is pulled back into the fey world by Oberon and Mab for they knew she went against the Iron King once before, and lived.  The fey world must be fairly bad off to be calling on Meghan the half-breed no one seemed to care for before.  Now Meghan finds she is a vital piece in the war at play for all angles.  All fear and all want her.  Summer, Iron, Exile, Mortals...  Which will she pick?

For me this was the best book in the trilogy.  All has lead up to this ultimate life changing battle.  Meghan as a character has grown immensely for me as a character and a young woman.  She has learned how to be responsible and think beyond herself.  Even Meghan has to make some heartbreaking decisions along the way as well.  Wonderfully played out here from Meghan's personal feelings for friends and loved ones all the way to the fey courtly persona.

In the end we are left with the opening for Ash's story to come in Iron Knight.  I'm longingly looking forward to the book and reading the short story that comes before it.


I purchased this book for my reading pleasure.

This book qualifies for the Speculative Fiction Reading Challenge hosted by Floor to Ceiling Books and 2011 YA Reading Challenge.