The Stolen Heir by Holly Black
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A runaway queen. A reluctant prince. And a quest that may destroy them both.
Eight years have passed since the Battle of the Serpent. But in the icy north, Lady Nore of the Court of Teeth has reclaimed the Ice Needle Citadel. There, she is using an ancient relic to create monsters of stick and snow who will do her bidding and exact her revenge.
Suren, child queen of the Court of Teeth, and the one person with power over her mother, fled to the human world. There, she lives feral in the woods. Lonely, and still haunted by the merciless torments she endured in the Court of Teeth, she bides her time by releasing mortals from foolish bargains. She believes herself forgotten until the storm hag, Bogdana chases her through the night streets. Suren is saved by none other than Prince Oak, heir to Elfhame, to whom she was once promised in marriage and who she has resented for years.
Now seventeen, Oak is charming, beautiful, and manipulative. He’s on a mission that will lead him into the north, and he wants Suren’s help. But if she agrees, it will mean guarding her heart against the boy she once knew and a prince she cannot trust, as well as confronting all the horrors she thought she left behind.
The Stolen Heir was one of my most anticipated books of 2023, as a fan of Holly Black and it didn’t disapoint. The story itself is a fantasy quest, road-trip style. With Oak, Tiernan and Wren heading off on an adventure, but there’s some tensions here and there, some untrustworthy companions, some deceit going on. There’s a lot of relationship building and changing with all the characters, but most notably is the first person perspective of Suren (Wren) and seeing how her mind changes throughout the story based on information on and actions of the other characters.
I do need to point out that whilst The Stolen Heir is the start of a new duology, you will need to have read The Folk of the Air series in order too know things about our main characters. Whilst Black makes time to explain and explore the backstories a little bit, there’s a lot that is inferred or slightly talked about but more detail would be better to have.
Wren is a changeling, which means she grew up with a human family and as a human for the first few years of her life. I loved the flashback to learn about her history, how she became like she is, and it leads us to understanding more about her character from when we see her in the Folk of Air series. There’s definitely parts of the story where you can clearly see Wren is fae, but there’s other parts where her human upbringing comes out which is intriguing to her character. I also loved how her actions are all so linked to her childhood and upbringing, there’s a lot of psychological affects going on.
Something that is actually brought up by one of the characters is that Wren is constantly “waiting for permission” to act and whilst I don’t think it’s completely accurate… I would have liked to see her character have a clearer motive for joining the adventure. The point is she wants to stop Lady Nore, but she only wants to do this once Oak has invited her along. This is a completely subjective opinion but I would have thought that Wren would have it out for Nore and would’ve found a way to get payback much earlier in her life of freedom.
Oak is all grown up from when we last saw him, and he’s just and conniving and dangerous as his family. I kind of wish this book had multiple POVs because I would have loved to get into Oak’s head a bit. The story mainly centres around wherether Wren should trust him, what his actual plan is, what kind of magic he has – but by far the most interesting thing about Oak is why he wanted to run away and why he throws himself into dangerous situations. It could have been such a good story and growth arc to see him change throughout the story.
Tiernan and Hyacinthe are Oak’s bodyguard and an ex-soldier/Oak’s prisoner who are also ex-lovers. Both these characters added to the road trip, but also allowed a bit of sub plot about loyalty in war and how that affects others. I really liked these additions to the story, and thought it helped bring a bit of a buffer between Oak and Wren, so they couldn’t just talk because other people were around.
The book can be pretty dark, and at times a bit bloody. Not too much that I was put off by the book, but this is definitely a dark faerie book and there’s not always a happy ending. There’s also an excess of child abuse, neglect, torture and being imprisoned so there’s quite a lot of heavy topics on display from the outset.
One thing I liked, which I’m sure some people would disagree with, is that this book mentioned Jude and Cardan but it didn’t bring them into the story or play fan service about them.The focus on this story and duology sits solely on Wren and Oak and their story and I liked that it built onto the world without falling too deeply into bring back old characters from other series.
The Stolen Heir feels like an Elfhame novel, but it also reminds me of the fae books I read in my teen years in so many ways, and yes this include’s Black’s earlier works of Tithe and Valiant.We meet and interact with many different types of fae, none of our characters are human (although both MCs had human-like childhoods), and we’re on an adventure through faerie which is a wicked and dark place where we can get hurt.
Overall I loved The Stolen Heir and it was a super quick read for me. The only reason I didn’t devour it in a day was because I’d recently got Smile Direct Club aligners and I was in a lot of pain and couldn’t focus for long.
Positives of The Stolen Heir
- Dynamics between Wren, Oak and Tiernan as they adventure to the North.
- A fun fantasy quest through faerie.
Negatives of The Stolen Heir
- Wren’s motive is a little flimsy.
- Wish we’d had more POVs
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