My book reviews for the The Iron Fey: Evenfall trilogy by Julie Kagawa. Please be aware that reviews for later books contain spoilers for previous titles.

Many years ago I picked up The Iron King at the library and fell in love with a unique series about Fey. I was very excited to hear that Julie Kagawa had returned to The Iron Fey universe and was thrilled to get my hands on ARCs for her newest trilogy!

Wicked faeries and fantastic danger… Welcome to book one of the new trilogy in New York Times bestselling author Julie Kagawa’s Iron Fey fantasy series, as infamous prankster Puck finally has a chance to tell his story and stand with allies new and old to save Faery and the world. For fans of Holly Black and Cassandra Clare!

“YOU MAY HAVE HEARD OF ME…”

Robin Goodfellow. Puck. Prankster, joker, raven, fool… King Oberon’s right-hand jester from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The legends are many, but the truth will now be known, as Puck finally tells his own story and faces a threat from a time before Faery began. A threat that brings him face-to-face with a new enemy…himself.

With the Iron Queen Meghan Chase and her prince consort, Puck’s longtime rival Ash, and allies old and new by his side, Puck begins a fantastical and dangerous adventure not to be missed or forgotten. Evenfall is coming, and with it a reckoning that even their combined powers and wits may not vanquish, as a shadow falls over the lands of Faery and the world slips into chaos.

This book was provided for free by NetGalley and the publishers in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this book!

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What drew me to this book was most certainly not Puck. I read the original Iron Fey series about 6 years ago and fell in love with the characters and the world created by Julie Kagawa. While many people saw this as an attempt for the author to make more money, I was glad that a publisher had offered Julie Kagawa a chance to return to the Nevernever and continue the stories of characters I loved. So many authors don’t get the chance to do that. But yes, I never saw the appeal of Puck. I found him childish and tedious, and his attachment to Megan was not sweet; it was toxic.

However, the thought of returning to the land of the Iron Fey is more powerful than my dislike of Puck even if he is the main character of The Iron Raven. The summary clearly mentions that he’ll be joining back up with Megan, Ash and other characters from the original novels which I’m looking forward to as well. Maybe he’ll end up growing on me, maybe he won’t. Either way, I’m ready to head back into the realms of the Fey for another set of adventures.

The Iron Raven was everything I hoped it would be and more. You might be wondering why I’ve given it a stingy 3.5 stars then. It’s not that it didn’t live up to the originals, it’s because while it’s a very promising start, The Iron Raven is still just a start. It offers a lot more to come, introducing new characters and as you’d expect a new big bad as a new adventure in the Nevernever unfolds. The problem with books like The Iron Raven is that it’s got to build upon the previous novels while introducing something new, and in this particular case, offer up the real story of Robin Goodfellow on a plate.

Julie Kagawa does this very well, intertwining Puck’s flashbacks with the current storyline and showing us how he came to be the legendary Fey everyone in the Nevernever knows. As we see Puck throw headfirst into this new adventure, we get to see sides of him that were missing from the original Iron Fey series. It isn’t just reading things from Puck’s perspective and seeing another side to his pranks and joker personality, it’s getting the opportunity to see him before everything begins. The moment when he’s just Puck, doing what he does every day. We get to see how the pressure of suddenly being thrust back into the thick of it affects him, how the past still weighs on his mind, and gradually throughout the novel my opinion of Puck changed.

If you’re expecting this to be the same as the good old days then sorry to disappoint, but this is set after the original series and a Fey Queen can’t just abandon her court for a long time. I’ll leave it at that. There are plenty of good moments with the old crew, however, and the new characters that join them more than make up for this not being Iron Fey 2.0. Personally, I don’t want a complete copy of the original series. I want something new and The Iron Raven most definitely has that in spades. I also feel that it is giving two of the most underutilized characters of the original series, Puck and another one (spoilers 😉 ), a chance to shine.

As the cover says; the legends are many but the truth will now be told and that is one of the most accurate tag lines I’ve seen in a while. The Iron Raven is an emotional rollercoaster and not in the ways you were expecting. You’ll have all the feels for returning to the Nevernever, to hearing Grimalkin’s sass and those moments where familiar characters enter for the first time. There are plenty of moments where you’ll laugh until you cry too, this is a novel with Puck as the protagonist after all. I’m looking forward to seeing where the rest of this series goes and hope there are more Puck and Grimalkin banter moments in the next book because they are the absolute best.

As Evenfall nears, the stakes grow ever higher for those in Faery…

Banished from the Winter Court for daring to fall in love, Prince Ash achieved the impossible and journeyed to the End of the World to earn a soul and keep his vow to always stand beside Queen Meghan of the Iron Fey.

Now he faces even more incomprehensible odds. Their son, King Keirran of the Forgotten, is missing. Something more ancient than the courts of Faery and more evil than anything Ash has faced in a millennium is rising as Evenfall approaches. And if Ash and his allies cannot stop it, the chaos that has begun to divide the world will shatter it for eternity.

This book was provided for free by NetGalley and the publishers in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this book!

Content Warnings:

At the end of The Iron Raven we found out that Touchstone, the capital of the Forgotten had vanished and Prince Keirran, Meghan and Ash’s son and King of the Forgotten, along with it. Those were quite literally the final words of the book. There are mere seconds that pass between the events of book one and book two, that and a change of narrator. Unlike book one, The Iron Sword is from Ash’s perspective, suggesting that this series is going to be a mixture of perspectives. After reading this one, I think what Kagawa is doing is taking each character through a mini-trial in each book. In this one we learn the nature of Evenfall and once you’ve read it for yourselves you’ll understand what I mean. While it would have been nice to have more Puck, this is an event that affects every one of the Iron Fey heroes and as the tag line says it’s five legends against an unstoppable evil to save their world. Each of them are going to have to dive deep and overcome things they’ve long buried or tried to hide before they’re ready to stop Evenfall. It also makes much more sense to have swapped to Ash or Meghan for this book as the majority of it is about finding Keirran and what happened to Tombstone. While Puck cares about the Prince, he’s not as heavily invested as either of his parents.

While we’ve had a book from Ash’s perspective before (The Iron Knight), The Iron Sword is from a much older and wiser Ash. He’s a husband, a parent, a ruler alongside Meghan. While love and loyalty still drive him, we get a very different perspective in this book, a much more mature one. He’s still dealing with the same old demons though, and while time has given him perspective and a bit more patience, he has to face them just as Puck did in The Iron Raven.

When we learn the nature of Evenfall and the ancient power that is rising it makes much more sense why Kagawa is putting her characters through these personal challenges. I wonder who will be next; Meghan, Kierran or possibly the new character Nyx?  The first Iron Fey series was four books long, the second was a trilogy, so it’s possible we could get one or two more books. I think it would make more sense to have one from Nyx if there’s only one more book.

I liked the way Kagawa involved events of modern society and technology, recreating what drew me to The Iron Fey series many years ago. Unlike other Fey series, The Iron Fey series merges the modern and the magic, instead of shying away from all things modern. Kagawa does so again in The Iron Sword, this time engaging the topic of online toxicity and trolling, an issue that has grown to be a huge issue in the Western world over the last decade. By doing so there’s the underlying suggestion that we look at what influences us as we all have the capability to be toxic, as seen in several scenes when fights break out among minor characters. While there’s something magical afoot in The Iron Sword, it’s confirmed that the negativity already existed. It’s just being taken advantage of, and manipulated and therefore, it has become elevated beyond normal levels.

As more of the storyline is revealed links to previous books appear, with some wonderful appearances from other characters. There’s also a fantastic look back at the past which shows us what two characters used to look like in their prime, and I know I’ll never be looking at someone the same way again. Everything has led to this event, to Evenfall, and I’m sure there will be even more nods to previous books before the series is finished. One thing is for sure, the Nevernever will never be the same again…

The extraordinary finale to Julie Kagawa's New York Times and internationally bestselling Iron Fey series is here…and the fate of the Nevernever and all the world hangs in the balance. Join Meghan, Ash, Puck, Grimalkin, and the entire Iron Fey cast for this final epic journey into worlds where imagination knows no boundaries…

After leaping through the portal to Evenfall, Meghan and her companions find themselves in a terrifying new world where Nightmares roam and glamour is nearly nonexistent. As their magic wanes and the creatures of Evenfall rise against them, the race to find the Nightmare King grows ever more desperate. But what they discover—about Evenfall, about the Nightmare King, about themselves—will shake everything they thought they knew to the core.

The Nightmare King stirs. A world hangs in the balance. And as twilight descends upon all the realms of Faery, Meghan and her allies must make one more impossible choice.

This book was provided for free by NetGalley and the publishers in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this book!

Content Warnings:

With the final book of the Evenfall Trilogy, Julie Kagawa takes us back on a nostalgia trip as she returns to the narrative voice that started it all; Megan Chase. We started this journey with Megan way back in The Iron King when she was a teenager who had just learned about faerie. The Megan we meet at the start of The Iron Vow is a very different person, a Queen of a faerie court, a wife and a mother, and it’s her turn to look back over the past as she fights for those she loves.

The previous book ended with Megan and her allies jumping into a portal to take their fight directly to the Nightmare King by going into his realm. They had no idea what they would find on the other side, or if they would even arrive safely, but it was the only option. Behind them, the other Fey courts guarded their backs and kept the Nightmare King’s forces from entering the Nevernever.

Evenfall is nothing like what any of them have ever seen before, what they expected, and it’s a huge shock for all of them, especially Nyx as she pieces together her memories of her home as they make their way through the realm. What is particularly difficult for them is coming to terms with the idea of no magic; Evenfall is a dying world with little magic, and the magic they brought with them won’t last for long. For Megan, it feels like going backwards, back to a time when she didn’t know who or what she was, to before she found her place in the world. Before she found Ash, she became Queen and a mother. It makes her question everything she’s done, and as their journey becomes increasingly more dangerous, Megan wonders what more she has to give before their mission is over.

As the last book in the trilogy, and according to the synopsis the last book in the Iron Fey series (what?!), expect an action-packed book filled with nostalgia and emotion. I don’t quite know how to put into words the feelings that Kagawa’s send-off managed to conjure up, what I will say is that I was sent back to that moment in a library where I picked up my first Iron Fey book. The one that started it all way back in 2016 for me. Yes, there were tears, but there were so many laughs as well, with Puck and Grimalkin’s banter hitting an all-time high.

The twists and turns in The Iron Vow will stick with you for a long time after finishing this one, and once again Kagawa draws upon the legacy of all The Iron Fey novels. Mixed in with new characters of Evenfall are some old familiar faces that pop in to remind us of the long journey that we’ve been on with these characters. There is one new character who has to be one of the creepiest characters I’ve ever met, yet is so brilliantly written and such a laugh that I’m quite sad that if there are never any more Iron Fey tales we won’t get to see them again.

There are incredible battle scenes in The Iron Vow, made even more interesting by the unfamiliar and magicless terrain of the Nightmare realm. This whole trilogy has been about our heroes fighting a foe that is unlike anything else in Nevernever, a foe that was ripped out of fey and banished by a group of ancient Fey. As their adventure comes to an end, it looks as though a sacrifice will need to be made. The question is how big will it be, and who will survive?

The Iron Vow is a compelling end to the Iron Fey: Evenfall trilogy and if this is the last time Kagawa writes in this universe then I am satisfied with how it ended. Although there is a small hint at the end of the book that suggests that maybe there’s another story to be told, so who knows?

Thanks for reading my book reviews for the brand new Iron Fey trilogy by Julie Kagawa, The Iron Fey: Evenfall.

Have you read the Iron Fey series? Do you plan on checking out The Iron Fey: Evenfall trilogy by Julie Kagawa?

Let me know in the comments!

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