Book Review: The Wish Granter, by C. J. Redwine

I'm going to be honest. Books about magic and fairies are not, in general, my thing.  But I was very entertained by The Wish Granter. This is the second book in the Ravenspire series.  The first was The Shadow Queen, which I also enjoyed. These are really separate fairy tale stories. I can't remember any of the characters overlapping, but it's been a while so I might be wrong.  You definitely don't need to read The Shadow Queen first, although, why not?

At the beginning of the book, we see Thad making a wish that will cost him dearly.  In order to save the life of his sister, Ari, he vows to become the King of Súndraille and to not meddle in the nefarious affairs of the wish granter, Alistair Teague.

So while Thad is a puppet king and Teague terrorizes and oppresses the townspeople, Ari is trying to figure out how to get Thad out of this horrible contract.  She has ten years because, after that, Thad's soul belongs to Teague.

Many new people are being hired to work for the king, and Sebastian is the new weapons master. He comes from a poor background, and his dad has terrorized Sebastian since he was a small boy.  His father works for Teague.  His mother is a drug addict because of Teague.  Sebastian is hoping to make enough money to build himself a cabin away from everyone.  Ari elicits his help to make her some weapons made of iron and to teach her how to use them.  Iron is supposedly one of the things that can kill the fae.

Sebastian and Ari begin to become friends and then much more.  They are together in the fight to figure out how to stop Teague.  It isn't easy.  Teague is strong and has eyes and ears everywhere. No one is safe. But Ari is one of the toughest female characters I've read in a while.  And she isn't going to stop until she succeeds.  It makes for an interesting matchup.

While there are fairytale elements, The Wish Granter is exciting and feels very serious.  This is not for the faint of heart and includes quite a bit of brutality and murders. The closer I got to the end, the more worried I got that this book wasn't going to end well. I never believed Ari was going to be able to overpower Teague. My worries were unfounded, and I ended up loving the way The Wish Granter ended.

The only niggle I had with The Wish Granter is the way the romance unfolds. It's obvious from the minute we meet Sebastian that he will provide the romantic element.  The reader doesn't need to be hit over the head with it.  I laughed when Ari referred over and over to Sebastian's "very intriguing shoulders."  What does that mean? Those strange observations were unnecessary. We get it.

The tension mounts perfectly, and as I got closer and closer to the end, I wanted to read faster and faster!  There is no better recommendation than that. Can't wait to give The Wish Granter to my teens.  It's a lot of fun.

Published by Balzer + Bray, February 14, 2017
eARC obtained from Edelweiss
432 pages

Rating: 4/5

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