The Queen of Nothing
Author: Holly Black
Published by: Hot Key Books
Pages: 308
Format: Hardback
My Rating ★★★★
Published by: Hot Key Books
Pages: 308
Format: Hardback
My Rating ★★★★
He will be destruction of the crown and the ruination of the throne.
Power is much easier to acquire than it is to hold onto. Jude learned this lesson when she released her control over the wicked king, Cardan, in exchange for immeasurable power.
Now as the exiled mortal Queen of Faerie, Jude is powerless and left reeling from Cardan’s betrayal. She bides her time determined to reclaim everything he took from her. Opportunity arrives in the form of her deceptive twin sister, Taryn, whose mortal life is in peril.
Jude must risk venturing back into the treacherous Faerie Court, and confront her lingering feelings for Cardan, if she wishes to save her sister. But Elfhame is not as she left it. War is brewing. As Jude slips deep within enemy lines, she becomes ensnared in the conflict’s bloody politics.
And, when a dormant yet powerful curse is unleashed, panic spreads throughout the land, forcing her to choose between her ambition and her humanity…
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Holly Black, comes the highly anticipated and jaw-dropping finale to The Folk of the Air trilogy.
Power is much easier to acquire than it is to hold onto. Jude learned this lesson when she released her control over the wicked king, Cardan, in exchange for immeasurable power.
Now as the exiled mortal Queen of Faerie, Jude is powerless and left reeling from Cardan’s betrayal. She bides her time determined to reclaim everything he took from her. Opportunity arrives in the form of her deceptive twin sister, Taryn, whose mortal life is in peril.
Jude must risk venturing back into the treacherous Faerie Court, and confront her lingering feelings for Cardan, if she wishes to save her sister. But Elfhame is not as she left it. War is brewing. As Jude slips deep within enemy lines, she becomes ensnared in the conflict’s bloody politics.
And, when a dormant yet powerful curse is unleashed, panic spreads throughout the land, forcing her to choose between her ambition and her humanity…
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Holly Black, comes the highly anticipated and jaw-dropping finale to The Folk of the Air trilogy.
My thoughts:
There are books that you eagerly binge in a day and books that you deliberately read slowly because you don’t want them to ever end. The Queen of Nothing is that rare treat of a fantasy novel that you want to both absorb quickly and savour slowly.
Enchanting from the very beginning, the Folk of the Air series has grown more exhilarating and more scheming with each book. It was always going to be difficult to beat The Wicked King, but all in all, this was such a fun read and everything I wanted from the finale.
Jude is back with a vengeance in The Queen of Nothing. She is probably the character who felt the most authentic from start to finish of the whole trilogy, and I really enjoyed her narration throughout. I think out of everyone in the book her character development was the best. I also loved the memorable introduction of Grima Mog, who is a complex and quirky character in this book.
In this book, the action that was so vivid in the first volume and slowed a bit down in the second one starts to pick up the pace again. But there is something different about the action of this third book. It feels much more twisty.
Feelings here just go deeper. They get intensified by the discovery of that fine line between hate and love. The whole blinding veil that’s been dropped over the slightly odd relationship between Jude and Cardan is lifted and now our two protagonists seem to really be on the same page. I routed for them in this book more than ever.
With The Queen of Nothing, Holly Black delivers what we’ve all been longing for. There’s action, romance, magic, double-crossing and intricate scene setting. Black’s writing is basically fantasy perfection – always dark, beautiful and filled with enchantment. Any time you read a Holly Black book; you know you can count on fantastic world building and I’m always blown away by her creativity.
I really liked that there was more of a clash of Faerie and the mortal world in this volume. It added a nice element to the story and I enjoyed the light-hearted moments in the early chapters while Jude still remained in exile, living a mundane life in the human world. But of course I also loved being back in Faerie. This fae world is without a doubt my favourite and I’ll always love how Holly Black is basically the master of creating all things faerie.
The Folk of the Air series really captured my imagination and I have enjoyed the trilogy immensely.
Thinking back on all three parts, perhaps my favourite aspect of the trilogy is the circularity of it. Everything ends in the same spot it started, and I’m not talking about a mental state but a physical one – the mortal world. With that, the circle is complete. And the trilogy is undoubtedly a total success.
I can’t believe it’s over. Concluding Jude and Carden’s story carries with it a sense of bittersweet finality but with all great series, it will be a pleasure to revisit as we live in hope of Black returning to her Faerie world in the future. I recommend checking out the bonus content after you've finished reading. A series of letters to Jude from Cardan are included after the acknowledgements in the hardback version, and they were a great little treat at the end!
The whole trilogy is great. Holly Black is a gifted writer and I enjoy her world-building, her plot and her characters very much.
Overall reaction:
There are books that you eagerly binge in a day and books that you deliberately read slowly because you don’t want them to ever end. The Queen of Nothing is that rare treat of a fantasy novel that you want to both absorb quickly and savour slowly.
Enchanting from the very beginning, the Folk of the Air series has grown more exhilarating and more scheming with each book. It was always going to be difficult to beat The Wicked King, but all in all, this was such a fun read and everything I wanted from the finale.
Jude is back with a vengeance in The Queen of Nothing. She is probably the character who felt the most authentic from start to finish of the whole trilogy, and I really enjoyed her narration throughout. I think out of everyone in the book her character development was the best. I also loved the memorable introduction of Grima Mog, who is a complex and quirky character in this book.
In this book, the action that was so vivid in the first volume and slowed a bit down in the second one starts to pick up the pace again. But there is something different about the action of this third book. It feels much more twisty.
Feelings here just go deeper. They get intensified by the discovery of that fine line between hate and love. The whole blinding veil that’s been dropped over the slightly odd relationship between Jude and Cardan is lifted and now our two protagonists seem to really be on the same page. I routed for them in this book more than ever.
With The Queen of Nothing, Holly Black delivers what we’ve all been longing for. There’s action, romance, magic, double-crossing and intricate scene setting. Black’s writing is basically fantasy perfection – always dark, beautiful and filled with enchantment. Any time you read a Holly Black book; you know you can count on fantastic world building and I’m always blown away by her creativity.
I really liked that there was more of a clash of Faerie and the mortal world in this volume. It added a nice element to the story and I enjoyed the light-hearted moments in the early chapters while Jude still remained in exile, living a mundane life in the human world. But of course I also loved being back in Faerie. This fae world is without a doubt my favourite and I’ll always love how Holly Black is basically the master of creating all things faerie.
The Folk of the Air series really captured my imagination and I have enjoyed the trilogy immensely.
Thinking back on all three parts, perhaps my favourite aspect of the trilogy is the circularity of it. Everything ends in the same spot it started, and I’m not talking about a mental state but a physical one – the mortal world. With that, the circle is complete. And the trilogy is undoubtedly a total success.
I can’t believe it’s over. Concluding Jude and Carden’s story carries with it a sense of bittersweet finality but with all great series, it will be a pleasure to revisit as we live in hope of Black returning to her Faerie world in the future. I recommend checking out the bonus content after you've finished reading. A series of letters to Jude from Cardan are included after the acknowledgements in the hardback version, and they were a great little treat at the end!
The whole trilogy is great. Holly Black is a gifted writer and I enjoy her world-building, her plot and her characters very much.
Overall reaction: