East of the Sun, West of the Moon – but with more sex and violence

After Feyre’s father lost all his money, her family (widowed, crippled father and two older sisters) live in a tiny cottage desperately trying to make ends meet. They mainly survive because Feyre taught herself to hunt and tries to make sure they have enough to eat. The only way they make money is if her father sells one of his wood carvings or Feyre has animal skins to sell at the market. One day, when Fayre sees a giant wolf in the woods while hunting and kills it with an arrow through the eye. The pelt brings her a fair amount at market, but come the evening, she discovers that she made a huge mistake.

The wolf was in fact a faerie in disguise, from the near-by faerie kingdom of Prythian. A gigantic fearsome beast comes tearing into her family’s cottage and demands that she come with him, to spend the rest of her life in Prythian, or pay with her life for killing the wolf. Fayre doesn’t really have a choice and fears for the safety of her father and sisters if she doesn’t go with the beast. She discovers that the creature is in fact one of the high fae, Tamlin, High Lord of the Spring Court and the wolf she killed was one of his vassals. Due to a curse, all the members of Tamlin’s court are stuck forever wearing elaborate masks. There is clearly something badly wrong in Prythian, a danger that may easily spill over the borders to the human lands, but no one seems willing to tell Fayre the truth about anything, while she’s otherwise treated as an honoured guest in Tamlin’s household.

Initially, Fayre keeps trying to escape to get back to her family, until Tamlin reveals that he’s made sure her father and sister are safe and in fact prosperous again, but only as long as she stays put on his lands. Reluctantly, she tries to settle into her new life and slowly, but surely, she grows closer to both Tamlin and his sarcastic, one-eyed envoy, Lucien. It also becomes clear that neither of them want any of the faeries from the other High Courts or the mysterious “she” who cursed them to realise that Fayre is living there.

Fayre’s hatred and resentment towards faeries eventually changes, and she grows more and more attracted to Tamlin, who in return seems to love her. When danger threatens, he sends her home to her family to protect her, but she refuses to stay, wanting instead to fight it with him. She returns to find him gone, with his servants finally able to tell her more about what the curse actually entailed. Fayre now has to fight her way into the evil Faerie Queen’s realm and risk everything she has to break the curse and rescue Lucien and Tamlin.

Full review here.