author : Holly Black

One terrible morning, Jude and her sisters see their parents murdered. The fearsome assassin abducts all three girls to the Faerie court, where Jude soon realises that to survive she needs to be as cunning and deceitful as the Fey themselves. But the stairway to power is fraught with shadows and betrayal. And looming over all is the arrogant and charismatic Prince Cardan.

Jude has tricked Cardan onto the throne, binding him to her for a year and a day. But the new High King does everything in his power to humiliate and undermine her.

Meanwhile, a traitor is scheming against her. Jude must fight for her life and also battle her own complicated feelings for Cardan. Now a year and a day seems like no time at all…

‘But your beauty will fade,’ he continues, just as softly, speaking like a lover. ‘And all you have and all you are will rot away to nothing. You will be nothing. You are nothing.

As the exiled mortal Queen of Faerie, Jude is reeling from Cardan’s betrayal and is determined to reclaim everything he took from her. Opportunity arrives in the form of her deceptive twin sister, Taryn, whose life is in peril. Jude must return to the treacherous Faerie Court and confront her lingering feelings for Cardan.

But Elfhame is not as she left it. War is brewing, and she becomes ensnared in the conflict’s bloody politics. When a terrible curse is unleashed, panic spreads throughout the land, forcing Jude to choose between her ambition and her humanity…