The Cruel Prince
core novel 2018 The Folk of the Air / The Modern Faerie Tales
Record
| First published | 2018 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 4.00 (1,855,860 ratings, collected 2026-08-20) |
| Page count | 384 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780316310277 |
Synopsis
The Cruel Prince opens in the world of Elfhame, home to faerie nobility who hold humans in contempt. Jude Duarte and her twin sister Taryn were brought there as small children after their parents were murdered, and have grown up as mortals in a court that despises them. Jude longs to earn a real place among the Folk rather than remain an outsider, even as she is bullied and threatened by Prince Cardan, the youngest and most reckless of the High King's children. When Jude is offered a path to standing at court through dangerous political games, she is drawn into palace intrigue surrounding the succession to the throne, forcing her to weigh honest ambition against the constant risk of faerie cruelty and deception, and to decide how far she will go to survive and matter in a realm built to destroy her kind.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Folk of the Air / The Modern Faerie Tales
- Series: The Folk of the Air core; position 1 of 3 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Holly Black
Notes
- From the series record (The Folk of the Air): The original trilogy set in the High Court of Elfhame, following the mortal-born Jude Duarte's rise to power.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.
- Publication order, within the series The Folk of the Air: position 1 of 3: next The Wicked King (2019)
Sources
- Holly Black - Wikipedia
- Holly Black's own complete bibliography page
- https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/holly-black/the-cruel-prince/9780316310277/
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