The Cruel Prince
by Holly Black
If I cannot be better than them, I will become so much worse.
Why read it
When Jude was seven, a faerie general murdered her parents and carried her off to raise in the treacherous High Court of Faerie, where she is despised for being human and where the cruelest of the fey princes seems to exist only to torment her.
Jude wants nothing more than to belong in a world that scorns mortals, so she sets out to earn her place through defiance and, when that fails, through cunning. To survive the deadly politics of Elfhame she must outmaneuver Prince Cardan and the other royal children, and in doing so she is pulled into a conspiracy of betrayal and bloody succession that could crown her or kill her.
Holly Black, a longtime cornerstone of modern faerie fiction and co-creator of The Spiderwick Chronicles, published The Cruel Prince in 2018. It became a runaway New York Times bestseller, anchored The Folk of the Air trilogy, and is widely credited with reigniting the faerie-romance boom in young adult fantasy.
- 01
Power over belonging
What awaits is Jude's turn from wanting acceptance to seizing leverage, spying, and blackmail as the only currency the fey respect.
- 02
The hateful prince
Cardan's contempt hides layers, and the venom between him and Jude curdles into something neither will name.
- 03
A stolen family
Jude's loyalties are knotted around Madoc, the general who killed her parents yet raised her as his own, a bond as tender as it is monstrous.
- 04
The game of crowns
A sudden succession crisis throws Jude into a scheme to control who sits on the Faerie throne, gambling everything on a single desperate play.
The tournament revel where Cardan and his friends humiliate Jude with faerie fruit and cruelty, hardening her resolve to never be their victim again.
The coronation bloodbath in the throne room, where Jude's hidden maneuvering suddenly determines the fate of the entire court.
