The Falconer by Elizabeth May

 

The Falconer by Elizabeth May 5 of 5 stars.


One girl's nightmare 

is this girl's faery tale.

SHE'S A STUNNER.

Edinburgh, 1844. Eighteen-year-old Lady Aileana Kameron, the only daughter of the Marquess of Douglas, has everything a girl could dream of: brains, charm, wealth, a title--and drop-dead beauty.

SHE'S A LIAR.

But Aileana only looks the part of an aristocratic young lady. She's leading a double life: She has a rare ability to sense the sìthichean--the faery race obsessed with slaughtering humans--and, with the aid of a mysterious mentor, has spent the year since her mother died learning how to kill them.

SHE'S A MURDERER.

Now Aileana is dedicated to slaying the fae before they take innocent lives. With her abilities and her knack for inventing ingenious tools and weapons--from flying machines to detonators to lightning pistols--ruthless Aileana has one goal: Destroy the faery who destroyed her mother.

SHE'S A FALCONER.

The last in a line of female warrior born with a gift for hunting and killing the fae, Aileana is the sole hope of preventing a powerful faery population from massacring all of humanity. Suddenly, her quest is a lot more complicated. She still longs to avenge her mother's murder--but she'll have to save the world first. (Jacket blurb)

Lady Aileana Kameron has run on pure rage and hatred since the night she watched her mother's gruesome murder at the hands of a ruthless and deadly sìthichean. Covered in her mother's blood and armed with only an iron blade she had gone in search of vengeance only to be met by an unlikely savior, Kiaran McKay, a faery of the same race that murdered her mother.

Smothering her grief beneath her seething anger, Aileana enters into a bitter alliance with Kiaran in which he teaches her how to kill his kind. Aileana doesn't understand him or his motives because Kiaran is hiding from her the real reason why he is training her. And it is not for her own personal vengeance.

The Falconer by Elizabeth May is a vibrant, fast-paced steampunk novel that will hold you captive from the first moment and leave you breathless at the end. I loved ever single second of this novel. It was one of those books that as soon as I finish it, I immediately open it up and begin it again. It deserves an encore!

The characters are atypical and interesting, the lore surrounding the story is sound, and the prose is precise and quick. I loved the depth and personalities of the characters. I was cheering for Aileana the whole time and sitting on the edge of my seat waiting to see what would become of Kiaran. Too often in YA fantasy the supposedly feral and sexy mythical hero turns out to be far too predictable and boring. Kiaran, however, remained a wildcard up to the very end and I loved that.

The end, by the way, is absolutely wretched. The kind of cliffhanger that haunts you and leaves you making up fanfic plots as you desperately wait for the next book.

Elizabeth May has fashioned a marvelous fantasy with a kick-ass heroine in a dark steampunk world with a plot that will keep you flipping the pages. I look forward to so much more from this brilliant debut author! The Falconer is, by far, my favorite book this year.

**This novel was sent to me for review by Chronicle Books. My opinions are completely unbiased. I would like to take a moment to say that Chronicle Books does an amazing job with their bindings. This book, like all the others I have received from them, is absolutely exquisite. Not only is the jacket pretty, but the engravings on the book itself are beautiful as well.

*To order The Falconer by Elizabeth May from Amazon.com, please click here.

To find out more about Elizabeth May, click here to check out her website!

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