Please be aware that SPOILERS lie ahead and that both the review and summary are strictly based on opinion.
Fantasy, romance, and faeries. These are just some of my favorite things I love in a book and Emma Hamm managed to tie them together in the beautiful masterpiece that is Heart of the Fae. The story of beauty and the beast is truly a “tale as old as time” but I have never heard the story being told in a way such as this, Irish mythology is not something that I was well versed in before reading this novel and yet I find myself seeming to want to know everything about the subject. Emma Hamm did a splendid job of spinning the story in a way that the reader will definitely find new and enticing. I would recommend this novel for new and young adult readers with an open mind toward the world of fantasy or just to anyone looking for a great read.
Sorcha is a headstrong philosophical woman who wishes to be a healer and Eamonn is the cursed Seelie prince that has been doomed to a lonely life of hardship on an island that can only be viewed every seven years. The characters that Emma Hamm wrote are so dimensional and relatable that it makes it easy for the reader to fall in love with both the characters and the story. However, I do think that while some of the choices that Sorcha made benefited the plot, the decisions made by Sorcha were questionable at times. For such a deep and philosophical character Sorcha would do things such as, follow a voice into a portal that leads to the Unseelie court without telling anyone about where you are going. Overall, Sorcha and Eamonn were great together and created a story that was definitely worth the read. You can find Heart of the Fae, the rest of the Otherworld Series, and other novels by Emma Hamm here: https://www.emmahamm.com/
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Synopsis (From my understanding/ Opinion)
The beginning of this entire tale begins with a story of two twins, one a scholar and one a warrior. One that was paid for and one that wasn’t. The Queen of the Seelie (light) was unable to give birth and traveled to make a deal with an Unseelie (dark) fae, they then negotiated to give the Seelie Queen a child for the price of peace between the two Fae. The Seelie queen went on to give birth to twins even though the deal was for her to only have one child. The favored twin was the first-born warrior and when the second-born twin grew jealous of the warrior, he stabbed his brother in the back- literally. The first-born didn’t die because under his skin grew crystals that protected him, however, he was deemed ugly and banished forever. Sounds good right? That’s only the beginning.
This story follows Sorcha, a midwife and wannabe healer who lives in a brothel with her adopted father and sisters. Recently, a blood beetle plague has been threatening the human race (to my understanding a blood beetle is a type of parasite that infests the host’s blood and then eats them from the inside out.) and Sorcha’s father. As the story is set back in time, Sorcha is given little respect due to her being a female trying to contribute to a male-dominated profession and-gasp living in a brothel no less. With the blood beetle plague getting worse and her father’s condition becoming dire, Sorcha decides to rely on her mother’s teachings about the Fae to ask for help. Please understand that Sorcha’s mother was one of the last people that believed in the Fae and even left offerings for them regularly and due to her familiarness with the Fae she was burned at the stake in front of her daughter. Because of her mother’s teachings, Sorcha was able to remember how to ask for help from the Fae that lived around her and encountered a “Tuatha Dé Danann” (High Fae) named Macha that hears her cries for help and sends her on a quest to gain the cure for the plague.
After a quick encounter with Macha’s twin children, Sorcha discovers that she must travel to a place called “Hy-Brasil” where an elusive Seelie prince lives and bring him back to the mainland in order to get the cure. With the help of a compelling yet complicated captain, merrows, and guardians of the sea, Sorcha makes it to the island to be told that the prince will not help her and is banished to a hag’s hut on the other side of the island. Never forgetting her purpose, Sorcha gains friendship with an Unseelie prince, a boggart, pixie, and maybe a gnome to try and convince the reclusive Seelie prince, who she deems “Stone”, to return to the mainland with her.
Just when she thinks that she’s getting nowhere, Sorcha is summoned by the Unseelie Queen who offers information about how she can help save the lives of those she cares about as well as those of the Fae. When Sorcha returns to the isle she finds a different Stone than when she left and a romance begins to bloom between the two of them. Sorcha begins to understand Stone more when she is summoned by his twin brother to act as a midwife to his pregnant concubine. The twin brother shows his true colors about how he treats the fae he rules and gives Sorcha a little more information about the feud between the two brothers. The romance between Sorcha and Eamonn (Stone) blooms and leads to an R-rated night that has the two of them agreeing that Eamonn will help Sorcha find a cure for the blood beetle plague if she will stay with him. Unfortunately, Eamonn’s twin brother decides to attack the following day leaving Eamonn to send Sorcha back to the mainland alone and away from danger.
Upon returning to the mainland and to the brothel where she grew up, Sorcha finds that all of her family has caught the blood beetle plague and will soon die without the cure. She vows to return to Eamonn to help him win the war that his brother waged and cure humankind of the plague once and for all.
*Please note that Heart of the Fae by Emma Hamm is only the beginning of an epic series!
The Light Box 