For seventeen years, Eloise Hart had no idea the world of Faery even existed. Now she has been abducted and trapped in the Rath of Lord Strahan, King of Faery. Strahan was only meant to rule for seven years, as Faery tradition dictates, and then give up his crown to another. But he won't comply, and now chaos threatens both worlds. The only one who can break his stranglehold on the Faery court is his wife. . . Eloise's aunt Antonia. Using Eloise to lure Antonia, Strahan captures his wife, desperate to end the only threat to his reign. Now Eloise must become the rescuer. Together with her best friends Jo and Devin, she must forge alliances with other Fae, including a gorgeous protector named Lucas, and Strahan's mysterious son, Eldric—who may or may not betray them.
After loving Harvey's Haunting Violet, and really enjoying My Love Lies Bleeding I was expecting something great and original with Stolen Away, so in the end I was sort of disappointed. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I found that this book, whilst having some elements of originality didn't really grab me and give me anything totally fresh.
I actually got into this book very quickly and the pacing for the whole book was pretty good, I loved Harvey's writing, as always she manages to write the characters in a way that made them seem real. I completely disagreed with some of the stupid things the characters did, but they were relatable as teenagers nonetheless.
Th big downfall of this book was the characters. I never cared about neither Jo nor Elouise which made it very hard to care about their journey and to be honest the only character I even semi-liked was Lucas who was still very one-dimensional. Eldric was the typical faerie prince with loyalties to his court and a human love, wow, how very original. Devin should have been in the book a bit more, he was funny...
I also struggled to differentiate between the narration of Elouise and Jo, which made for some confusing reading, that annoyed me a little because if I'm reading a book in dual narrative, I want two unique characters and I didn't get that.
The story was original in that Eloise only has very watered down faery-blood, she is actually human (mostly) so the story is different to the usually half/full faery princess/changeling goes into scary faery world to save someone she cares about... okay, a little different, but still unique enough that I didn't feel as though I was reading a rip off or something.
Overall, an original story with great writing but characters were a massive let down...
Overall Rating: C-
Book released January 5th through Bloomsbury
Copy recieved in exchange for an honest review.
It's a shame the characters were disappointing, especially since the writing was great and the story was pretty original. Still pretty excited to read this but hopefully I won't be let down because my expectations aren't too high. Thanks for the review :).
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