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Book Review: Iron Knight

Written by Ed Fortune Wednesday, 28 March 2012

Reviews - Books

Review: Iron Knight / Author: Julie Kagawa / Format: Paperback / Publisher: Mira Ink / Release Date: Out Now

As a rule, one should never judge a book by its cover, and in many cases, this is literally true. For example, if one was only going by appearances, you would probably miss out on Julie Kagwa’s Iron Knight, because it’s covered in sparkly glitter and the front declares that it’s “The next Twilight”. So you’d be forgiven for assuming that it’s yet another clone of the popular supernatural romance series, when it is in fact nothing of the sort. Rather, it's quite an entertaining tale of supernatural horror and love, though one aimed firmly at girls of all ages.

Iron Knight is the last book in the Iron Fey series, though works reasonably well on its own. As the name suggests, the Iron Fey books are about the creatures from the lands of faery. In Kagwa's world, the fey live in their own dimension parallel to our own, and they are three factions; Winter, Summer, and the newly formed Iron, a realm inspired by the inventions of man.

Iron Knight follows the adventures of Ash, the lovesick prince of the Winter realms. The poor fella has sworn an oath to find a way to be with the woman he loves, which, because this a story inspired by fairy stories, requires him to find a way to become mortal. Along the way, he is assisted by some of the super stars of fairy inspired fiction; Puck Goodfellow is along for the ride, as is the Big Bad Wolf. This is a tale of unexpected surprises and wild ideas, and a reasonably strong one at that.

Kagwa has a real talent for engaging and readable dialogue. Iron Knight is very far from my usual comfort zone, and being a middle-aged, slightly grumpy and jaded chap, I am certainly not the target audience, and yet I found it effortless to read and a nice way to pass the time, though it is a little slow in places and the pacing is quite uneven. Fantasy fans will get a kick out of this, as will those who enjoyed the likes the TV series Grimm and the Fables graphic novels.