The Falconer
Juvenile Fiction
Chronicle Books
May 6, 2014
Audiobook
378
Debutante by day. Murderess by night. Edinburgh's only hope. Edinburgh, 1844. Beautiful Aileana Kameron only looks the part of an aristocratic young lady. In fact, she's spent the year since her mother died developing her ability to sense the presence of Sithichean, a faery race bent on slaughtering humans. She has a secret mission: to destroy the faery who murdered her mother. But when she learns she's a Falconer, the last in a line of female warriors and the sole hope of preventing a powerful faery population from massacring all of humanity, her quest for revenge gets a whole lot more complicated. The first volume of a trilogy from an exciting new voice in young adult fantasy, this electrifying thriller blends romance and action with steampunk technology and Scottish lore in a deliciously addictive read.
WrensReads Review:
This book reminds me a lot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And by that I mean nothing with the story and everything to do with who 18 year old Lady Aileana Kameron, the only daughter of the Marquess of Douglas truly is: A Falconer.
Falconer: a female warrior born with gifts to hunt/kill fae.
..or really a Vampire Slayer minus the vampire and plus the fae.
So we have steampunk,
based in Scotland.
So just add a red-headed warrior-heroine,
sprinkle in a pixie,
and a lot of faes.
And you have this book.
I think the narrator, Susan Duerden (★ ★ ★ ★ ★) made me love this book even more because she has a Scottish Accent and it just drew the whole setting into a complete circle. She was easy to understand and it was just a glorious listen.
So Aileana leads a double life. She is the proper daughter and lady she is suppose to be during the day, and a fae hunter by night. She goes against everything that she is suppose to be purely because she wants revenge. A fae murdered her mother right in front of her. She wants to kill her in the least, probably torture to the greatest.
“Crimson suits you best.”
She is being trained by the exactly thing she hunts, a fae named Kiaran, in how to survive, and she has a little pixie named Derrick who helps mend her clothes for a cost (side note: Derrick was my favorite part of this whole book. He’s hilarious and I need a pixie in my closet).
There is romance in this book, though it isn’t the main focus. I will say that there is another Buffy the Vampire Slayer reference towards the romance side, you know the whole “forbidden” and “I hunt your kind, you kill my kind” type of deal.
I loved the fact that we didn’t start out with her being oblivious to the world and not knowing what she is doing and all of sudden she is so great and wonderful and spectacular at this random thing that dropped in her lap and blah blah blah blah. Insta-stars are so annoying.
She has been doing this for a while and she knows what she is doing and she trained her butt off to be as good as she is.
It’s a great read for anyone who loves things about Seelie Court and the Unseelie Court things. I can tell we are going to expand on that in the next books. Basically if you love fantasy, steampunk and just kind of BA things, this book is up your alley and you should read it so we can discuss it!
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