Hendrix was outrageously inventive with his debut novel ( Horrorstör, 2014) and continues his winning streak with a nostalgic (if blood-soaked) horror story to warm the hearts of Gen Xers. The wonder of friendship proves to be stronger than the power of Christ when an ancient demon possesses a teenage girl. Her journey to the Fae lands also allows Leech to introduce the Fae history and the fanciful creatures that once roamed the landscape.Ī satisfying romantic fantasy that should please fans of the first book in the series. He has a solid foil in Claudette, a sensitive, earnest young woman who seeks to make a difference in the world. He may have unscrupulous motives for courting Claudette, but he’s not without a conscience, and this tension turns a character who could have been a shallow cad into an intriguing, if tormented, hero. Here, the focus shifts to Prince Corin, showing him to be a man of intractable contradictions. Leech’s sequel expands the Fae world that she introduced in The Dark Prince and introduces a dynamic new heroine.

He desires her love and trust, but his secrets could have devastating, far-reaching consequences. His cold, calculated seduction soon turns into something deeper as he realizes he’s fallen in love with her.

Claudette is completely besotted with Corin, despite warnings that he has a dangerous side. She’s his ideal wife-sweet, innocent, and easily manipulated if he can cajole her into accepting three gifts, she will be bound to him forever. Unwilling to accept his mother’s choice of a bride, he travels from the Fae world to the mortal one in search of a young woman named Claudette, whom he’s heard about from friends of friends.

She issues him an ultimatum: either he finds a wife or she will force him to enter into an arranged marriage. His dissolute lifestyle is a source of consternation to his mother, Queen Audrianne, who’s desperate for him to start acting like a future king. Losing his beloved Océane to his best friend, Laen, devastated him, and he dulls his heartache by womanizing and drinking himself into oblivion. Prince Corin Albrecht of Alfheim is a broken man. A Fae prince journeys to the human world to secure a bride but gets more than he bargained for in Leech’s sequel to The Dark Prince (2015, etc.).

A Dark Design by Emma V. Leech