I found this softcover in my Little Free Library in Nashua NH; thanks to whoever dropped it off! It's the first of a YA series about a girl who has to deal with the realm of Faerie, against her will - at first.

And... I didn't care for it. I do wonder if I'd have liked it better if I'd read it when I was a teen; it has a lot of those overly-dramatic fantasy-relationship scenes that are horrifying as real-life examples but can be quite tempting to a hormone-ridden teen. (See also: Twilight.)

This series is set in a world where there's been a long-standing border/barrier between the world of the fae and that of mortal humans, but things are changing. Feyre, a young woman who's an expert hunter, falls foul of all this when she kills a wolf - who turns out to be a fae in wolf-form - and is forced to cross into the land of the fae to live in a castle with a handsome fae lord, Tamlin, who spends some of his time in beast form as well. (Feyre is pressured to accept the situation by the threat of massive harm to her family - always a good start to a relationship, no?)

There are complications, and lots of political machinations going on within the various factions of the fae, with angst-y bits and horrifying punishments and treachery... oh, and the transition from (as the jacket-blurb puts it) "icy hostility into a fiery passion" on Feyre's part as she falls for her "beast". (Later in the book she's forced to submit to public fondling from another fae lord, Rhysand, who seems to be a serious rival/foe of Tamlin's - and I gather that this will lead to yet another ill-founded passion. Sigh.)

While I'm happy to accept some amount of plot-driven weirdness in novels, I just didn't care for this one. Didn't enjoy the writing, didn't like most of the characters (with the exception of Lucien, a fox-like fae who's Tamlin's best/only friend (?), with a horrifying back-story of his own that left his face half-scarred; he's a bit of a prankster, which is irksome, but in this book he's more of an ally to Feyre than anybody else), and REALLY didn't like the brutally ill-advised relationships, which were not earned in the way that more successful angst-ridden romances might be.

But I gather that the series is wildly popular, so perhaps someone else will enjoy this book more than I did {wry grin}!

[There's a TV Tropes page on the series, with some entertaining tidbits.]

Guidelines for safely visiting and stocking Little Free Libraries during the COVID-19 pandemic, from the LFL site here.

I left this book in this new-to-me Little Free Library outside the school (while ducking the lines of cars there to pick up students - maybe best to visit this one outside of school hours!). Hope someone enjoys it!

[See other recent releases in NH here.]

** Released for the 2022 May Royalty challenge. **

** Released for the 2022 April Showers/May Flowers challenge. **

I read this book back in 2018 and was excited to find it again at the little free library at the school to re-read. I just finished rereading it and will be dropping it off to a different little free library to pass to someone else.

Picked up in a lfl. Not really my cup of tea, but finished. Will be putting in a lfl.