Redheaded Reviews: The Wicked King by Holly Black

This is the second book in a trilogy. In the first book, Madoc, a redcap Faerie took Jude and her twin sister Taryn along with her half-sister Vivian to Elfhame, the land of Faerie after killing their mother and Jude and Taryn's father. Vivian is his daughter. He raises them as if they are is own. But it is dangerous in Faerie for humans. Prince Caradan and his friends Loche and Nicasia who pick on them incessantly. Loche makes moves on Jude only to propose to her sister Taryn, as his making out with her sister was a test for Taryn. Jude who had wanted to be a knight becomes a spy instead in Prince Dain's spy network along with the Ghost, Roach, and Bomb. When Prince Dain is to be crowned king his brother Balekin kills all his brothers and sisters in order to become king, but Prince Cardan refuses to crown him king he runs and hides. The Court of Shadows, Prince Dain's spy network has a plan to put Madoc and Oriana's child Oak, whose real mother was Loche's mother and father was the king on the throne. But he's too young to be put on there now so they send him with Vivian to the mortal world to grow up normal and put Prince Cardan on the throne as Jude has extracted a vow from him to do as she commands for a year and a day.

Five months have passed and progress has been made in that humans are no longer being made to use as enchanted slaves. But there is resentment between Cardan and Jude who is acting as his Senchel. He is chomping at the bit that she controls. Nicasia attempts to kill a lover of his that is in bed with Cardan by shooting an arrow into the room and almost hits him. She is in love with him and wants the marriage that her mother, the Queen of the Undersea, wants to arrange for her. Her mother is in constant contact with Balekin from his jail cell in the Tower of Forgetting. A marriage would be disastrous because it would seal his place on the throne.

As everyone is making preparations for Taryn and Loche's wedding the fear is that the Queen of the Undersea is out to get Oak so strategies are made to protect him. Jude goes to get Oak and Vivi and her human girlfriend Heather who it turns out knows nothing of Faerie. So she is finding out all at once. While at the wedding someone tells Jude that she is needed at the jail and she goes. Nicasia said that someone would betray her and someone does. She is captured and taken to the Undersea for a month and tortured and glamoured, though because of her geas from Prince Dain she cannot be glamoured, though she must pretend that she is.

King Cardan makes a deal to get her free which involves letting Balekin free and acting as an Ambassador to the land for the Undersea and allowing the Undersea to attack the Termites without allowing any fighting back. Jude owes a debt to the Termites for their backing Cardan and they expect her to pay it back if they aren't going to fight for them. Madoc is furious as he is the General of the Armies.

This book is just as good as the first one. The chemistry between Jude and Cardan has grown deeper and though they hate each other they can't keep their hands off each other. Jude is walking on a razor's edge trying to control Cardan without pushing him over the edge. And what game is Cardan playing? Is he a spy playing at being king or is he really just a party animal who doesn't care? The ending of this book is just amazing and shocking. I can't wait to see where it goes next. Black really delivers in this series. I give it five out of five stars.

Quotes

Fighting was chess, anticipating the move of one’s opponent and countering it before one got hit.

-Holly Black (The Cruel King p 1)

I have heard that for mortals, the feelings of falling in love is very like the feeling fear. Your heart beats fast. Your senses are heightened. You grow light-headed, maybe even dizzy. Is that right? It would explain much about your kind if it’s possible to mistake the two.

-Holly Black (The Cruel King p 25)

I have said that he has the power to deliver a compliment and make it hurt. So, too, can he say something that ought to be insulting and deliver it in such a way that it feels like being truly seen.

-Holly Black (The Cruel Prince p 57)

If you’re the sickness, I suppose you can’t also be the cure.

-Holly Black (The Cruel Prince p 57)

It occurs to me that desire isn’t something overindulging helps. Maybe it is not unlike mithridatism; maybe I took a killing dose when I should have been poisoning myself slowly, one kiss at a time.

-Holly Black (The Cruel Prince p 181)

Sometimes when lying on the cold stone floor, I wonder if there’s a limit to what I will let them do, if there is something that would make me fight back, even if it dooms me. If there is, that makes me a fool. But maybe if there isn’t, that makes me a monster.

-Holly Black (The Cruel King p 236)

Fear is terrible, but the combination of fear and hope is worse.

-Holly Black (The Cruel Prince p 244)

The point of a fight is not to have a good fight; it’s to win.

-Holly Black (The Cruel Prince p 298)