Based on what I’d heard, I didn’t expect to like this book. A cruel love interest? Not my cup of tea. Yet I finished reading this brisk, pulls-no-punches read in about three days and snatched up book two.

The Cruel Prince is unputdownable, sometimes because of the many bad things that come MC Jude Duarte’s way (the train wreck phenomenon, if you will). Other times, it’s because it genuinely sizzles and hooks the reader. What a strangely effective mix of exciting, high-stakes plot developments and dread! Like the cruel prince himself, it’s a little bit manipulative and a lotta bit addicting.

Part of why this works is because Jude is easy to identify with. One of the few humans in fairy, she is an outsider who has a love-hate relationship with her father figure, stands up to bullies and just wants some say in her life, for crying out loud. She’s a typical teen with familiar problems, only dropped into a wicked, dangerous world where she is constantly at a disadvantage and her mortality is shoved in her face. Except for Jude, the threats she faces are nothing compared to what her protective fae father, the blood-soaked General Madoc, would do in a rage. She chooses to greet them in silence.