As I fell completely head over wheels for Holly Black’s writing style and the universe she created in The Cruel Prince, it felt only right that my next two books of 2020 were books two and three of the Folk of The Air trilogy. A spoiler warning will have to be in place though as I can’t talk about elements I loved in this book without referencing past events. So, if you’re a reader who can’t abide spoilers, I’d encourage you to save this blog for a later date once you’ve away and read it for yourselves.

If you’re still here after being given fair warning, great! Let’s onward with my thoughts on The Wicked King!

There’s a quote from Madoc that really stuck with me throughout my reading this book. He observes: power is much easier to acquire than it is to hold on to. For me, this quote was so poignant and encapsulated everything I loved about this second book: Jude now has the authority and influence she wanted having tricked Cardan onto the throne at the end of The Cruel Prince, and is acting as his seneschal, with Cardan agreeing to an oath of submission to Jude for a year and a day. Five months into his reign, The Wicked King is the book that explores the ramifications of getting what you want.

For Jude is finding intrigue, betrayal and suspicion still rife within the Court of Faerie, and finds herself embroiled in foiling an assassination attempt, and facing corruption from outside court as well as in. As with its predecessor, I fell in love with this story because once more the focus is on these elements, with the romance weaved in. Speaking of the romance, I found the tension between Jude & Cardan to be much more striking and engaging than it was previously, and I enjoyed the dynamic between the two of them much more this time around, probably because they are embracing it and the tension it creates between the two of them and how they handle it, together and individually. I especially liked seeing how Cardan’s feelings for Jude shape his character arc, and I definitely warmed to him much more than I did in the previous book. I love the banter he and Jude have as they try and make sense of their feelings for each other: there’s flashes of humour and warmth that felt really genuine and endearing to me.

For me, Holly Black is wonderful at suspense and misdirection: I thought I had all the puzzle pieces for the twists in place and that I knew where it was going, and I confess I did manage with some of them, but then a revelation later in the novel caught me totally off guard… there were audible gasps! As ever, she also revels in her universe being quite dark – though it made me uncomfortable one of my favourite sequences is The Queen of Mirth tradition at a ball during the Hunter’s Moon that Locke has organised in his new role as Master of Revels. The tradition involves the Fae folk crowning a mortal to drink, hurl insults at and essentially humiliate, but what struck me was that she enjoys being the centre of attention and thereby the control that that offers her.

Away from Jude and Cardan, one of the things I loved best about The Wicked King was the direction Holly Black takes Jude’s other relationships: with Taryn, Vivi and Madoc. We discovered in the previous book that Taryn and Jude have grown further and further apart due to Locke’s influence, and Taryn continues to choose the latter over her sister. The sister’s relationship is still fractured in The Wicked King, but they  will eventually reconcile (under some pretty grim circumstances, more on those next blog!)which I think is incredibly important for Jude as a character: I believe Taryn keeps her grounded and teaches her to think more carefully, and conversely Jude teaches her sister to be more courageous and to become more perceptive to the people around her. We also see more of Vivi in this book, and learn more about her relationship with a mortal girl named Heather. Unlike her sisters and despite being a full blooded Fae, Vivi is more at home in the mortal world, and chooses not to tell Heather the truth about her origins. Heather joins the girls on the trip for Taryn’s wedding, under the impression that they’re attending a family wedding in Maine. Vivi only tells Heather the truth about Faerie after they come face to face with Ragwort steeds to take them there. Like Jude, I was incredibly shocked that Heather could be so accepting of Vivi lying to her, and later at the wedding when Heather has an unfortunate experience with magic, that Vivi could wipe her memory (that would have taught her a valuable lesson and kept her safer in Faerie and be so blase about it – Vivi definitely lost the brownie points she’d got from me in the previous book here.

It’s a case of keep your friends close, and enemies closer in my mind where Jude and Madoc are concerned, and I adored this dynamic. Jude admits in The Cruel Prince that her relationship with Madoc has always been strained in that he killed their parents, and yet he has raised the sisters, taught them how to handle themselves in combat, and so on. It’s fantastic to see Jude has been learning from his example, and working to foil his plans without him realising!

I often feel quite anxious about sequels, and in general terms I don’t always think they are as good as the first books. Happily though, I felt The Wicked King doesn’t fall into that category and is just as strong; I took longer to read it than The Cruel Prince because I wanted to ensure I fully followed all the twists and turns, but my love for the series is as strong as ever!