Ironside by Holly Black

So, changelings. I've always been fascinated and creeped out by the idea of changelings. The idea is that the faeries come and steal a baby away and leave something behind in its place cloaked in glamour (illusion). The thing they leave behind might be a log or bundle of straw and then the illusion either wears off and reveals what is underneath or the baby seems to die before the magic dissipates. Sometimes though they leave a faerie baby behind and the magic never wears off but the babies are difficult and sickly. As they grow they develop into wild cantankerous children who act out and run away. From a pragmatic view this is an early explanation for difficult children that absolves the parents of responsibility.

The thing is that these stories always focus on the human parents or sometimes the human baby...but they are always human-centric. Ironside focuses on the faerie child instead as a protagonist which is an interesting  perspective. After all, what must it be like to realize that your parents aren't your parents and that you aren't even human?

Even though the first two books in the series have little in the way of shared characters, this third book in the series brings most of the main characters from both of the earlier books back. Roiben is about to be crowned; Kaye is still in love with him and insecure about it. Corney is dealing with his trauma from the first book and looking for ways to protect himself from the fey. Val and Ravus are making a go of the whole human & troll love match thing, but don't turn up much. Dave is still broken and burned out from his drug overdose, but Luis features more in this last book and finally gets some resolution.

The plot picks up a couple of months after the second book with the coronation of Roiben as the unseelie king. Kaye declares her love to him publicly and receives a seemingly impossible quest which she takes as a rejection. Casting about for a path, she decides to tell her human family the truth and gets wrapped up in the seelie queen's plot to take over the unseelie court.

In some ways, I think this the best of the three books. The first two were fun reads but there is a better balance to the story in Ironside. The intrigue means that this isn't just a teen romance which is nice. I'm sad that there aren't any more books in the series, the world is a lot of fun.