The Lost Prince (Review)

The Lost Prince
 
Author: Julie Kagawa
Series: The Iron Fey: Call of the Forgotten, 1)
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Release Date: October 23, 2012
Reading Level: Young Adult
Source: NetGalley
Format: E-galley
Pages: 379
Pre-order here: Amazon or B&N


Synopsis: (from Goodreads)
Warning: There will be spoilers within for the original Iron Fey series!

 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's 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 myths and talking cats, of magic and seductive enemies. But when destiny comes for Ethan, there is no escape from a danger long, long forgotten.

My name is Ethan Chase. And I may not live to see my eighteenth birthday.


My review:
I was so excited when I received this books from NetGalley.  Thanks so much to Harlequin for providing me with the pre-release review copy, and to Julie Kagawa for writing such an amazing book.

The Iron Fey is one of my all-time favorite series, so I admit that I'm a bit prejudice when it comes to this book!

This is the first book in The Iron Fey: Call of the Forgotten, the spin-off to the Iron Fey series.  It focuses on Meghan's little brother, Ethan Chase, who we met in the first book when he was captured by the Iron Fey.  Being the brother of the Iron Queen, Ethan has been tortured by Fey his entire life.  He is seen as an outcast, a bad boy - and everyone tries to avoid him.  Then, he meets Mackenzie St. James.

As usual, Julie Kagawa delivers another amazing story.  As I said before, I am a huge fan of her original series, so I had high expectations for this book, and it definitely met them.  It has a mix of many things:  action, romance, fantasy, mystery, and much more.  You get a mix of new characters, like grown-up Ethan, Kenzie, Razor and Keirran (if you read The Iron Knight you know who that is!) and cameos from some old favorites, including Meghan, Ash, Puck and Grimalkin!

As far as the characters go, I didn't really see Ethan as the YA-bad-boy.  I still saw him as the 4-year-old boy that was kidnapped and tortured mercilessly in the Iron court.  Seeing him from another person in the story's P.O.V, then yeah I would see him that way, burning down the school, pulling a knife in school, all that good stuff.  But reading from his P.O.V, all I saw was a guy, still scared of that world that stole his sister and left him dealing with the aftermath of the events that caused such misery in his life.  He has to continue to protect his family, with no help from his sister, an actual Fey, who has seemingly abandoned him with this overwhelming situation of Fey making his life a living hell.  So for me, it wasn't the whole "OMG I'm in love with Ethan!" situation.  It was more the "I feel so bad for him and I really like him" thing.  Plus I'm actually in love with his brother-in-law so that wouldn't really work out.  Then, he comes to the Iron Kingdom, searching for Meghan's help, and what does she do?  Lock him away in the castle.  So yeah, I like Ethan.  He's been through a lot in life and he's dealing with it the only way he can: becoming a brooding, anti-social, mock bad-boy.

Keirran.  The son of Meghan and Ash.  The Iron Prince.  I really liked him in the beginning.  I was doing the whole, "yayayayayayayay" dance when he first came in to play, because I immediately knew who he was.  And then when he managed to get Ethan and Kenzie out of the castle, I'm thinking, "oh yeah! A new trio on the adventure!  This is going to be great."  And I gotta say, I really did love him.  Up until the end.  Then, I was not happy.  I won't spoiler it, but I was seriously disappointed in the most anticipated character of this book for me.

I'm not sure what to say about Kenzie.  She seemed like your typical popular high school girl reporter.  Always in to everything and everyone's business.  She was extremely pushy when it came to Ethan, so I kinda don't feel sorry for her that she got taken to the Nevernever.  Though I did see the whole "shocking reveal" for her coming.  For me it wasn't a shocker, it was more of a, when is Ethan going to realize what is going on?  Come on, it's soooo obvious!  I didn't really have feelings one way or another for her.  She wasn't the most memorable character.

The old cast needs to make more appearances in future books.  Let's have two daring trios running all over the place to fight the evil!  I would love to see Meghan, Ash, Puck, Ethan, Kenzie and Keirran all fight side-by-side to fight the big baddie.  Oh, and can we please get a new love interest for Puck?  Everyone else is loving someone but Puck.  Poor guy.

I really loved the fact that there wasn't a love triangle in this book.  Don't get me wrong, I do like a good love triangle, but it's done so much these days and I feel like a lot of times you get distracted by the triangle and the author lets the rest of the story drift away.  It was refreshing to focus on the actual story going on around the characters instead of on the romance.

The Call of the Forgotten series contains the "new type of Fey", The Forgotten.  If you read Kagawa's [book: The Iron Knight], you will remember these Fey in the town that the group stopped in.  They are the Fey whose names no one remembers.  They start to fade out of existence, not remembering who they are, where they are going, what they are doing, etc.  Their only chance of survival is to feed off the glamour of the other Fey.  But, doing so leads to the Fey's death.  I think the worst part about the whole Forgotten Fey, is that Ash, Puck and Grim know what they are, but they can't remember!  I'm hoping though that we learn more about this mysterious Fey in the sequels to come.

My suggestion is to read the original series before reading this book, though.  You don't HAVE to, but it would be better if you did.  There is a lot of lingo that you pick up from the original series and there are massive spoilers for them as well!
I did not read Iron's Prophecy before reading this book, and I feel like I may have missed something by not reading it, possibly explaining the whole Ethan/Keirran situation you pick up on while reading the book. Though it could just be that it is not supposed to be known yet and it will be covered in the next book.  I'll just have to wait till Iron's Prophecy comes out this month!

Look for The Lost Prince, out October 23, 2012!

Pre-order your copy today!