Julie Kagawa was born in Sacramento, California. But nothing exciting really happened to her there. So, at the age of nine she and her family moved to Hawaii, which she soon discovered was inhabited by large carnivorous insects, colonies of house geckos, and frequent hurricanes. Julie now lives in Louisville, Kentucky with her husband, two obnoxious cats, one Australian Shepherd who is too smart for his own good, and the latest addition, a hyper-active Papillon puppy. Learn more at Julie Kagawa's website.
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Iron Fey — (2010-2011) Publisher: Meghan Chase has a secret destiny — one she could never have imagined.
Something has always felt slightly off in Meghan's life, ever since her father disappeared before her eyes when she was six. She has never quite fit in at school.or at home.
When a dark stranger begins watching her from afar, and her prankster best friend becomes strangely protective of her, Meghan senses that everything she's known is about to change.
But she could never have guessed the truth — that she is the daughter of a mythical faery king and is a pawn in a deadly war. Now Meghan will learn just how far she'll go to save someone she cares about, to stop a mysterious evil no faery creature dare face.and to find love with a young prince who might rather see her dead than let her touch his icy heart.
The Iron King
The Iron King is just plain fun. Julie Kagawa takes sixteen-year-old Meghan Chase on a heroic journey through the lands of Faerie, where she meets a host of vivid characters and crosses unearthly landscapes in search of her missing kid brother. Along the way, she learns a dangerous secret about her parentage, gets caught up in a Faerie political struggle, and finds herself torn between two very different fey boys.
There’s an element of pastiche to The Iron King; readers may spot a dash of Lewis Carroll here, a smidge of Labyrinth there, a hearty dollop of Shakespeare, and even some Greek mythology. (Read the scene where Meghan meets Queen Titania and tell me there aren’t some serious Hera vibes going on.) Yet Kagawa successfully balances archetype and novelty. The familiar tropes make us feel like we’ve glimpsed this Faerie realm before and might be able to guess at its rules, but there are just enough surprises that the story feels fresh.
Meghan is a compelling heroine, sometimes annoying, but always interesting enough to drive us through the story. She’s kind of bratty at the beginning, fuming because her mom hasn’t bought her preferred breakfast cereal, but she grows over the course of her travels. She’s sometimes oblivious to the rules and customs of Faerie, and falls for tricks and traps that savvy readers will recognize before Meghan does. She’s brave, though, and stubborn, and quite clever at times. I look forward to seeing her develop further as the Iron Fey series progresses.
(And on the “no room to talk” front, I remember another teenage girl who used to get steamed about her parents’ bad taste in breakfast cereal. I won’t mention any names, but I will say that she grew up to be a blonde, bespectacled FanLit reviewer with a weakness for YA faerie lit.)
Compared to other popular writers in this subgenre — such as Holly Black, Melissa Marr, and Maggie Stiefvater — Kagawa’s work is less brooding. It’s not that Meghan doesn’t have reason to brood; she’s got plenty of that. She just doesn’t have time. The story moves quickly from one suspenseful moment to the next without much room for angst. There’s also less description. When Kagawa shows us a new vista, she describes it beautifully but briefly. These differences aren’t “good” or “bad” per se. In some moods I prefer one style, and in some moods I prefer the other, and your mileage may vary.
Oddly, I found it relatively easy to put down The Iron King between chapters. This isn’t because it’s in any way bad; it’s because it’s episodic. Meghan’s quest is always there as a driving force, but the individual chapters are almost stories in their own right. If you’ve read the Percy Jackson books, you know what I mean. Meghan moves closer to her goal, she meets a strange being or beings who try to help or harm her, that mini-arc is resolved, and we move on to the next chapter.
To sum up: The Iron King is a solid debut, and a real pleasure to read. I recommend it to teen and adult readers alike. —Kelly Lasiter
The Iron Daughter
Meghan Chase has kept her promise and allowed Ash, prince of the Winter Court, to take her back to the castle of his mother, Queen Mab. Before arriving at the castle, Meghan thought a hint of romance had blossomed between her and Ash. Yet now he treats her with cold disdain before the entire Unseelie court.
The early chapters of The Iron Daughter focus largely on Ash’s icy demeanor and Meghan’s resulting hurt feelings. Meghan is rather annoying in these scenes; her angst drowns out any rational thought she might apply to the matter. The reader can easily see the real reason for Ash’s behavior, and so it’s frustrating to watch Meghan miss it. Happily, this doesn’t go on too long before Julie Kagawa introduces this book’s big conflict.
To sum it up quickly and as non-spoilerishly as possible, the Iron Court has regrouped under a new King and is trying to foment war between the Summer and Winter courts. Meghan and a small group of allies are the only ones who realize what’s really happening and must remedy the situation before the two courts can decimate each other. The plot structure is similar to that of The Iron King. Kagawa takes us on a quickly-moving trip through the beautiful and perilous realms of the fey. We meet a host of new characters — from a spider that had this arachnophobic reviewer shuddering, to a rogue fey Queen who is both frightening and a lot of fun to read about. The Iron Fey novels would probably make terrific animated movies, come to think of it, with their exciting plots and the striking visual imagery Kagawa creates.
Along the way, Meghan develops as a character. She finds new strengths within herself, both of the magical and leadership varieties. I enjoyed watching Meghan stand up to powerful forces and make difficult decisions. I suspect she’ll probably be Queen of one court or another before this series is over, and she’s starting to show the steel she’ll need in that capacity.
Less satisfactory is the romantic subplot. I may just be too old for this, but it feels a little contrived. Starting with the aforementioned misunderstanding about Ash’s snub, we then move on to the love triangle foreshadowed in the first book (are love triangles required in young adult fantasy at the moment?), and later a high school dance that just so happens to be held on exactly the night Meghan and friends need it to fix a metaphysical problem.
In the end, though, we get to see Meghan exhibit some of the backbone she’s developing, and major choices are made. I’m looking forward to the next book, The Iron Queen, and hoping it has more politics, more scary faeries, and less angst. —Kelly Lasiter
Blood of Eden — (2012- ) Young adult. Publisher: In a future world, vampires reign. Humans are blood cattle. And one girl will search for the key to save humanity.
Allison Sekemoto survives in the Fringe, the outermost circle of a vampire city. By day, she and her crew scavenge for food. By night, any one of them could be eaten. Some days, all that drives Allie is her hatred of them. The vampires who keep humans as blood cattle. Until the night Allie herself is attacked — and given the ultimate choice. Die… or become one of the monsters. Faced with her own mortality, Allie becomes what she despises most. To survive, she must learn the rules of being immortal, including the most important: go long enough without human blood, and you will go mad. Then Allie is forced to flee into the unknown, outside her city walls. There she joins a ragged band of humans who are seeking a legend — a possible cure to the disease that killed off most of humankind and created the rabids, the mindless creatures who threaten humans and vampires alike. But it isn't easy to pass for human. Especially not around Zeke, who might see past the monster inside her. And Allie soon must decide what — and who — is worth dying for.
The Immortal Rules
A plague has killed off much of the human race, and now vampires rule, keeping the remaining humans under tight control to ensure a steady blood supply. Allie Sekemoto lives on the outskirts of New Covington, a vampire-ruled city. She’s part of a ragtag gang of street kids who survive by scavenging and stealing. And she hates vampires. That is, until the day she is mortally wounded and brought back as one of them.
The Immortal Rules follows Allie as she learns how to live as a vampire (still on the run, because her sire is persona non grata in vampire society), and later joins a party of humans and tries to fit in among them. Julie Kagawa creates a harsh post-apocalyptic world, spins an action-filled plot, and introduces us to a fierce heroine. Allie’s determination to survive and her unwillingness to blindly obey anyone will keep readers rooting for her through all her trials.
Kagawa builds great tension in the early chapters as she shows us Allie’s struggles as a human. The chapters immediately following Allie’s transformation are slower, mostly because there’s a lot of exposition to get through. Most of this exposition is probably necessary. After all, every vampire author puts an individual spin on the traditional folklore, picking and choosing which bits will turn out to be true and which false in the story. It’s also character development for Allie, as we see her react to what she learns. It can be a little dry at moments, though.
The book picks back up when Allie joins a group of humans on a pilgrimage of sorts. Led by the fanatical Jebbadiah, this group is searching for Eden, a city without vampires, which may be real or may be a myth. Allie soon becomes attached to these people, and the tension moves back up to unbearable levels as her blood hunger becomes more insistent. Soon she will have to choose one of them to feed on, or else the hunger will take over and she will no longer be able to choose, or to exercise self-control in her feeding. And increasingly, feeding on any of them is starting to seem unconscionable to her. I read most of this section in one sitting, because it was so psychologically intense and I couldn’t bear to put the book down until this plot point was resolved.
The final section of The Immortal Rules is intense in a different way. I noted when reading Kagawa’s IRON FEY series that she writes great visuals that would translate well to the big screen. She does that here too, setting exciting action against the hauntingly ruined shell of a familiar city. And there’s more to come even after that…
Allie is a terrific heroine. Her stubbornness, her ethical struggles, and the way she cares for others even in spite of herself make her sympathetic and pull the reader through the book’s occasional slow spots. Her love interest, Zeke, is also a compelling character, especially his inner conflict as he begins to question everything he has been taught. Jeb, too, has a great inner conflict and is interesting even though he’s hateable. Kanin, Allie’s sire and mentor, has a tragic history and is interesting even though he is, perhaps, too often a dispenser of exposition. I was disappointed by Ruth, however; mostly because she’s the only other young woman in the book and she’s a catty mean girl. She’s actually right to be suspicious of Allie, but most of her hostility seems to stem from the fact that the two girls like the same boy.
The Immortal Rules is a good page-turner. It’s divided into four sections, each of which is very different from the others but interesting in its own way, and the book as a whole doesn’t feel anywhere near its 485-page length. It ends on a good stopping point, but with the next plotline clearly visible on the horizon. I will definitely pick up further books in the BLOOD OF EDEN series.
A final note: I hope Harlequin Teen will reconsider this cover. While it’s striking, it is disappointing in that it doesn’t reflect the heroine’s Japanese heritage. —Kelly Lasiter
Julie Kagawa was born in Sacramento, California. But nothing exciting really happened to her there. So, at the age of nine she and her family moved to Hawaii, which she soon discovered was inhabited by large carnivorous insects, colonies of house geckos, and frequent hurricanes. Julie now lives in Louisville, Kentucky with her husband, two obnoxious cats, one Australian Shepherd who is too smart for his own good, and the latest addition, a hyper-active Papillon puppy. Learn more at Julie Kagawa's website.
The Iron King
The Iron Daughter
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