Book Review: The Iron King - Julie Kagawa

My name is Meghan Chase.
In less than twenty four hours I'll be sixteen. Countless stories, songs and poems have been written about this wonderful age, when a girl finds true love and the stars shine for her and the handsome prince carries her off into the sunset.
I don't think it will be that way for me.
Meghan Chase has a secret destiny - one she could never have imagined...
Something has always felt slightly off in Meghan's life, ever since her father disappeared before her eyes when she was six. She has never quite fit in at school... or at home.
WHen a dark stranger begins watching her from afar, and her prankster best friend becomes strangely protective of her, Meghan senses that everything she's known is about to change.
But she could never have guessed the truth - that she is the daughter of a mythical faery king and is a pawn in a deadly war. Now Meghan will learn just how far she'll go to save someone she cares about, to stop a mysterious evil no faery creature dare face... and to find love with a young prince who mmight rather see her dead than let her touch his icy heart. - From the back of the book.

Many faerie books are very similar, many sharing the same mythology, many having a Summer and Winter court etc. Though The Iron King does have these things, Julie Kagawa manages to bring something else into the story, something you wouldn't expect from a faerie story, something that hasn't been heard of before. Her world of the fey is unique, yet Kagawa makes it seem like it's somewhere familiar, somewhere easy to imagine, and somewhere easy to get lost in.

There were many twists and turns in the novel, leaving you with no way of knowing what will happen next in Meghan's magical adventure. Meghan, as a character, was wonderful. She was strong, independent and stubborn, just as the heroine of a story should be. She didn't depend on the male characters in the book, and was just the kind of character you want to read about, not one who moans and groans all the time, but one who's interesting, and believable.

Also, the supporting characters were also written beautifully, not something that is common in a debut novel, such as Puck, Ash and Grimalkin. Usually, you get a few stand out characters and the rest fade away to a distant place in your brain and are forgotten, but I can remember most characters now, a month or so later.
This book has some of everything in it. There lots of action, a little romance, some humour. The plotline was well thought out, and was written exceptionally well, not too slow, but not too fast either. It sets up the next 2 books in the trilogy nicely, and leaves you hungry for The Iron Daughter, the second book in The Iron Fey trilogy, of which this is the first.

I give it 5 Feet!