Synopsis from Amazon:
Set in Regency-era Scotland along the beautiful shore of Loch Lomond, Prince of Foxes is based on the Scots tale of Gold Tree and Silver Tree, with Lord of Horses moving down to the dark streets of London and based on the tale of The Kelpie’s Bride. King of Forever, the final story in the trilogy, is set in the faerie realm itself and is based on the tale of Tam Lin and the myth of Hades and Persephone.
My Thoughts:
I was a little underwhelmed by this series, so much so that I only read the first two books and a little of the third. The first book, Prince of Foxes, follows Sorcha, a Scottish girl whose parents are ready to marry her off to a businessman to preserve their land, as she tries to rescue Lachlan, the future king of the Seelie court, who has been cursed into the form of a fox. The second book follows Sorcha and the kelpie villain from the first book as they travel to London to try to save the land and loch they love. I did not get far enough into the third book to get a solid sense of the story for a one sentence synopsis.
The story premises overall were pretty interesting. This is probably aided by the fact that the stories are based on classic stories. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the series after the first book, so I gave the second one a shot. By the third book, I realized I didn’t really care how it ended for the bizarre trio of protagonists. I was pretty ambivalent about most aspects of the stories, so each element has its pros and cons.
I appreciated the integration of Scottish mythology into the narrative of the story. I have definitely read many stories about the Seelie and Unseelie Courts and their encounters with generally unlucky humans. I haven’t read many stories with kelpies as protagonists though and I enjoyed the author’s exploration of how the kelpie’s magic works in the second book.
The setting is nice, though I feel that for how central it is to the conflict in the story, it would have been highlighted a little more. The story does weave in how influential the land and the loch are to Sorcha’s life and upbringing, but I feel like there were opportunities for a little more description of the environment. Given that Lachlan and Murdoch (the kelpie) are essentially embodiments of the land and water respectively, there were opportunities to really reflect them off of each other more often.
The characters had personalities that were pretty equally endearing and annoying. Sorcha is a headstrong, independent girl with a good heart. I liked her in general; however, the fact that she was so cavalier in her interactions with the fae was a little difficult to believe. A girl who was raised to be cautious of the fae might still be intrigued enough to get wrapped up in saving them from curses or punishments, but her brazenness came off as needlessly reckless instead of empowering. While I understand that the fae are flighty, fickle creatures, Lachlan came off as almost creepily horny rather than a strong candidate for love interest. Out of the three main characters, Murdoch struck me as the most realistic in his reactions to the events of the story, and he was supposed to be the bad guy.
More than anything, the events in the first two books just seemed rushed and the relationships between the characters too convenient. Had the author taken her time to really develop the love interest between Sorcha and Lachlan, it would have made for a more interesting and natural progression and added some needed substance to the story.
Overall, this was a middle of the road set of books. I didn’t dislike it enough to stop after book one, but I didn’t like it enough to read through book three. If you’re interested in fairy tale and fae mythology, this might be for you.
Want to give it a shot? Find the series on Amazon here!
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