Fairest Son - H. S. J. Williams (Review)

“Beast or not,” he said, “don’t you know it is incredibly foolish to hunt upon the sidhe’s grounds?”

“Don’t you know,” she said, “that mortals are incredibly dense?”

It has been prophesied that Prince Idris of the Seelie Court will unite the two courts of the Fae.  But King Adoh of the Unseelie Court doesn’t care for this idea.  When he attacks the young prince, leaving him blind and marred, all believe that the prophecy can never come to pass.  Idris retreats to the wild lands, where he lives with seven goblins too ugly to be bothered by his ruined face.  Yet King Adoh is not satisfied to leave Idris alive.  Fortunately, he has an assassin that he can send after the blind prince…

Keeva the huntress has never trusted anyone.  When she comes to the wild hills, the prey that she hunts may not be what she expects…

High Points

Idris and Keeva are both really enjoyable to read about.  They have a great relationship and a lot of fun dialogue.  I especially related to Keeva, who has a lot of baggage to carry around.  What we get of her backstory is really interesting; I would have liked to know more, but that would probably have given away a major plot twist!

This story is gender-swapped, with a male Snow White, yet Williams incorporates many of the story’s original motifs: apples, a poisoned comb, a deathlike sleep, a villain in disguise.  Each of them feels integral to the new story—they aren’t just added as part of a Snow White checklist.

“Fairest Son” has a brand-new overarching theme that is sustained through the story with rich imagery.  I like stories that make me think about the world, so I especially enjoyed that aspect of the tale.

Caveats

(Hmm… surely there’s something I can complain about…  People are more likely to take a review seriously if you say something grumpy…)

A lot of the description in this story is done in a heightened tone.  This usually works well, but in the prelude in particular there are a number of places where the tone fails suddenly or where a twenty-dollar word is used incorrectly.  There are also some typos that seem to have been introduced when the story was converted to an ebook.

A nitpicky thing: the author uses both the “seelie” and “sidhe” spellings.  These are the same word, one spelled according to the Irish tradition, one according to the Anglicized tradition.  Also, since Williams uses these regionally-specific designations for the Fae… is the story set in Britain or Ireland somewhere?  I didn't think so when I was reading it.

Bottom Line

This is a fun, edifying, and well-written story that I will definitely reread in the future.  I paid for my copy and don’t regret it.  :)

Links

Find it as an ebook or paperback here.

Hannah’s website is here.