Review: The Falconer

The Falconer by Elizabeth May
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I received a free e-book copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for this opportunity!

The Falconer by Elizabeth May is a great fae fantasy book about Aileana, a girl whose mother was murdered by fairies. She seeks revenge for her mom's murder while also trying to fit into the constricting lifestyle of women in 1844.

This was a good book and a quick read for me, but there were some parts that didn't sit well with me. First of all, the main character Aileana reminded me a lot of Adelina from The Young Elites, in which her history and reasonings were very similar and the personalities were pretty similar. Sadly, I didn't like Adelina and didn't care much for Aileana either. I also didn't really like Aileana's bloodthirstiness. With all the other kick-butt assassin characters I've read in other books, they don't necessarily like killing people. Here, Aileana loves and craves killing the fae, which could've been an interesting aspect, but it just ended up a bit annoying.

The romance was very lacking in this book, and it would have been better if Gavin or Kiaran were more fleshed out characters, or even if there was no romance at all. The buildup to the romance with Kiaran seemed lackluster and didn't have me excited at all.

The plot itself was very intriguing! I just wish they went more into the "falconer" aspect (I mean it literally is the title). The name was thrown around a lot, but not much happened with it. Like it did, but it didn't. Where were the falcons???

I think four stars is a generous rating, but here it is.

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