The Falconer #1
The Falconer came into the bookstore one day with a blurb from Sarah J. Maas on the cover and it was a pretty quick decision about whether or not I would be taking it home to read it.
Synopsis
She’s a stunner. Edinburgh, 1844. Eighteen-year-old Lady Aileana Kameron, the only daughter of the Marquess of Douglas, has everything a girl could dream of: brains, charm, wealth, a title – and drop-dead beauty.
She’s a liar. But Aileana only looks the part of an aristocratic young lady. She’s leading a double life: she has the rare ability to sense the sithichean – the faery race obsessed with slaughtering humans – and, with the aid of a mysterious mentor, has spent the year since her mother died learning how to kill them.
She’s a murderer. Now Aileana is dedicated to slaying the fae before they take innocent lives. With her abilities and her knack for inventing ingenious tools and weapons – from flying machines to detonators to lightning pistols – ruthless Aileana has one goal: destroy the faery who destroyed her mother.
She’s a falconer. The last in a line of female warriors born with a gift for hunting and killing the fae, Aileana is the sole hope of preventing a powerful faery population from massacring all of humanity. Suddenly, her quest is a lot more complicated. She still longs to avenge her mother’s murder – but she’ll have to save the world first.
Review
The Falconer took me over a month to finish. Typically, a young adult fantasy takes me less than a week, if not just two or three days. Why it took me so long, I honestly can’t put my finger on it, other than to say that I didn’t love it as much as I thought and hoped I would. All the pieces were there that usually equate to literary obsession for me: fierce female heroine, faeries, a Scottish setting, steampunk elements, etc, but I just wasn’t hooked.
Protagonist Aileana is likeable enough, though difficult to relate to, and her prowess in fighting killer Scottish faeries of lore is explained reasonably enough. The love story is pretty obvious and predictable and the love triangle contrived and unbelievable. The cliffhanger is terrific, but a little mean, so now I must keep reading a trilogy I might have otherwise abandoned.
But, and it’s a big but, Elizabeth can write, and write very well. Any potential plot and character development shortcomings are more than compensated for with exquisite writing. May’s knowledge of Scottish lore is beyond compare and she weaves such knowledge (and vocabulary) expertly into her fantastical story. Here’s to hoping the second book is just as well written and the character’s more developed.
Rating: 8 out of 10 stars
Celebration of Books 