Thank you to Sierra Simone and her team for the advance reader copy of The Fae Queen’s Captive.
I jumped at the chance to review this. Who does not love the queen of smutty academia-core that is Sierra Simone? Plus faeries!
I am a Sierra Simone review team member, but I remain honest and genuine in my reviews.
“A grad student sets out to find a missing castle and is kidnapped for the pleasure of a fae queen instead…
It’s that time of year, friends. The moon is full and Samhain approaches. Your invitation to the Shadow Market is here. Three days of magic, drama, seduction, and maybe just a dash of human sacrifice! Come through the portal and meet witches, demons, gorgons, mermaids, the fae, and even the odd human who’s gotten turned around and ended up somewhere they shouldn’t.”
Check out my more detailed thoughts below…
- Characters: Our leads in this short story are Janneth and Morgana. Janneth is a grad student, studying to be an archaeologist. She has this air of unhappiness. It is very clear she is a very sexual person but is struggling to connect with people in her life. That is until she enters the Fae realm. She meets Morgana, the Queen of the Court of the Stags. She is of course beautiful as most Fae are. She is definitely a very morally grey character, with some complicated motivations. I admired that Sierra depicted this ruler struggling between being selfless for her kingdom or selfish for herself. In a shorter story, Sierra builds compelling side characters that add to the story.
- Setting: The setting is lush with depictions of the Fae world. Sierra is such the perfect choice to take this on, as she imbued the whimsy of her Thornchapel setting into the faerie realm. The only thing is that sometimes the world-building elements do not really have much time to develop as this is a shorter story.
- Pacing: In terms of pacing I know that these were intended to be short books, I just wish it was a little longer to flush out the world and romance more.
- Romance: This book is hot hot hot and it is super queer. This is yet again more evidence that Sierra can write any iteration of couples/groups. Sierra uses the side characters to her advantage, Idalia and Morven bring about one of the hottest scenes in the book. I did feel as if I could not buy into this love, it was slightly too insta-love. It felt more like lust than love. It needed more time to grow.
The Fae Queen’s Captive receives three out of five stars.
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Thank you again to Sierra and her team for the review opportunity. Thank you for reading and supporting my blog!
