The Lost Prince by Julie Kagawa is the fifth book in the Iron Fey series, though it’s also the start of the spinoff Call of the Forgotten series. Harlequin claimed on NetGalley that I could start with this book, so I decided to give it a try and test the theory ;-). While I didn’t end up loving The Lost Prince, I did enjoy the concepts and definitely think you can start with The Lost Prince and still enjoy Call of the Forgotten. I’m actually kind of glad I started here, since I don’t think I would have loved the romance in the first four Iron Fey books.
The Lost Prince by Julie Kagawa (Call of the Forgotten #1)
Published by Harlequin Teen on Oct. 23rd, 2012
Genres: Fantasy, YA
Length: 377 pages
How I got my copy: Borrowed
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Don’t look at Them. Never let Them know you can see Them.
That is Ethan Chase’s unbreakable rule. Until the fey he avoids at all costs—including his reputation—begin to disappear, and Ethan is attacked. Now he must change the rules to protect his family. To save a girl he never thought he’d dare to fall for.
Ethan thought he had protected himself from his older sister’s world—the land of Faery. His previous time in the Iron Realm left him with nothing but fear and disgust for the world Meghan Chase has made her home, a land of myth and talking cats, of magic and seductive enemies. But when destiny comes for Ethan, there is no escape from a danger long, long forgotten.
Strengths:
- I haven’t read that many books about fairies, but enough that I was quite excited to see a new premise in The Lost Prince involving creepy ghost fey. Taking the fluffy idea of fairies in modern day and turning them into sharp and dark things is so much fun :D.
- I’m such a sucky for adorable sidekick characters and there is a gremlin named Razor that stole my heart! He’s kind of like an intelligent dog in that he is very eager to please and not quite human level intelligence, but he can talk (he reminded me of Doug >.>) and it’s so cute! Plus he’s a gremlin and so he gets all static-y when he’s excited haha.
- As I said above, I think starting with The Lost Prince and only reading Call of the Forgotten would work fine. There is plenty of filling in the important parts of the previous series and I didn’t feel lost at all :).
- Ethan, the MC, has the Sight and can see the fair folk. I thought that this element was handled quite well in that it had strengths and weaknesses and was always there (like a normal sense), not only when it was convenient for the plot.
- Ethan practices Kali, which is apparently a Filipino martial arts (though I can’t find anything on the Internet about it besides this Kalis blade), and it was fun seeing that hobby utilized through out the plot. A character who has trained for years in order to defend himself instead of just having magic abilities :D.
Weaknesses:
- The romantic dialogue in The Lost Prince was a bit painfully cheesy at times. There might have been some eye-rolling >.>.
- Ethan has some pretty angsty, annoying and sexist internal thoughts and I just wanted to smack him upside the head at various points.
- The Lost Prince has a fair amount of repetitive phrasing, in that I felt like I was reading the same sentence again that I read one page ago. This feeling was because I basically was….
- The only people who didn’t see that plot twist coming were the characters….
Summary:
The Lost Prince has an interesting premise and was perfectly fine to read as a fluffier book. If you don’t mind some cheese with your romance, you will probably quite enjoy it :). I’m looking forward to reading the second book (Iron Traitor) mostly because I’m hoping that there is betrayal >.> I think there are good odds given that title!
