If holly writes a book about the undersea with nicasia as a love intrest i want the mc to be mortal because it would be IRONIC(maybe sophie since she is captive there)

The way I am HOPING SO HARD that it would be a Nicasia story........ And you're sooo right. I suppose Sophie doesn't count as a mortal anymore, being a drowned one and stuff, but Nicasia falling for a girl would be queen shit. C'mon Holly give me some toxic yuri

Sorry if thisjoke has been made a thousand times before but. Madoc wearing a shirt saying I'm not the stepdad I'm the dad that stepped up

Vivi wearing a matching one that says "HE FUCKING KILLED THE PREVIOUS DAD"

By chance, do you understand Cardan's relationship with Locke? I hardly see anyone talk about it. Like why is Locke so set on humiliating Cardan? I know he likes stories and wants to see how different people can react in certain situations, but it seems on a more personal level with Cardan, almost as if Locke is trying to get revenge or one-up him. Maybe there's a bit of jealousy? He seems pleased to tell Taryn in The Lost Sisters how he "stole the lover of a prince." (It was something along those lines)

I like the way this is phrased, bc I like to think I DO understand these books, but whether that's true or I'm just delulu addicted to them bc of a past coping mechanism who knows!

Anyway onto the answer. Yes, I think you're correct that it's about Cardan's social status, but also his personality. I don't think he is jealous of him but he likes to push people's buttons and test how far he can go before they snap, and he likes that he is doing it to a prince, a KING, who can't do anything about it. He correctly identified Cardan's need for attention and connection with people and he is exploiting it. Cardan is very short tempered with strangers (rip the wing of that guy from his introduction scene), but with his friends and family he is incredibly lax. This is important because even if Locke likes other people's reactions, the guy is allergic to consequences of his actions and gets personally offended if someone dares to call him out (see Jude almost getting killed for it). Locke enjoys thinking that he is so important to Cardan that he just can't get rid of him, no matter what he does to him. Whenever Locke recounts the tale of the triangle, he conveniently leaves out the part where he intentionally told Cardan about it, then pissed his pants when Cardan didn't react the way he wanted him to, and got his ass whooped. He agreed to marry Taryn only because she proved to him he was allowed to do anything he wanted to her without suffering consequences - naturally, as she was a desperate, titleless mortal and he a rich faerie noble - and that's what killed him.

SO in short. He likes fucking with Cardan because he knows Cardan won't retaliate, and because punching up is more fun than punching down.

after a tfota reread and the suren duology, im totally obsessed with taryn. i recently read the lost sisters tfota novella and there is suchhhhhh juicy stuff in there. locke targets taryn dead to rights, playing on every insecurity, and taryn’s insecurities are so interesting, especially her thinking about her vulnerabilities!! taryn thinks that jude has her place in faerie secured and so taryn is the weak link here and she’s trying to barter her way into a good position. (i also loved her analysis of vivi’s state of mind and that once vivi leaves, she and jude are even more vulnerable.) i love how her and locke’s bargain is a parallel to jude and dain’s. even after just fifty pages can i see how taryn was driven to straight up murder. the more page time locke gets the more sinister he is at how very competent he is at manipulating feelings and what seems like almost psychological torment. taryn makes a lot of mistakes but it really only makes her character so much interesting!!! another taryn novel/la for me please!!!!

YAASSS TARYN FANCLUB!!!!! I love the novella for the exact reasons you mentioned. It is a short retelling of the first part of TCP, but from Taryn's POV, and it gives us SO many interesting parallels. I especially like how while Jude's TCP arc is realizing she is cold-blooded and violent and wondering if that makes her a monster, throughout the novella Taryn is like "oh I am not violent, oh I am so prim and proper" but the more people test her, the more she finds it may not be so true. My personal fave is when Locke shows up beneath her window after ghosting her for weeks and she's like "Hehe what if this time Madoc caught him sneaking around the property and killed him, that would be sooooo cool he totally deserves it- WAIT NO WHAT AM I THINKING THAT IS HORRIBLE???". People always forget that she was always just like the rest of her family. She IS vicious and vengeful, as evident in how she treated Jude for putting a target on both their backs and "stealing" Locke, but like Cardan said, she doesn't want it to be true. She refuses to accept that part of herself, even though she is aware, she chooses to pretend she is all softness and kindness so that's the thing everyone sees her as. She wants to be better than the Folk, and be rewarded for it. It shames her that Jude abandoned that idea and decided to be worse, because now she is the only one cowed and scared. ANOTHER cool narrative is Taryn's relationship with food, how she is a comfort eater and keeps consuming more and more the worse her mental state gets, but is still always hungry. Then there's the metaphorical role of food that Locke presents, where a life she might want is a banquet, all the various experiences of love spices, and she is "refusing to eat" because she is scared of Faerie. But by the end of the book she is "gagging food down" through the Jude trial to prove that Faerie food or no she can take it, even though she hates the taste. She is trying to drown her sadness and guilt in the belief that staying true to Locke will finally make her feel full and satisfied. Where ELSE did I see that greedy streak huh I wonder!

Anyway. The Lost Sisters ily what a 10/10 addition I need a sequel except HB gave up on Taryn years ago

My theory of why tpt is such a letdown is because HB had others ideas but the editor probably didnt like it and she had to change the book in the last moment,in a interview shes asked if some caracters from others series will apear and she says yes but they dont,EVERYONE WAS PUSHING THE WHOLE JURDAN VILLAINS and they used for marketing.They were to many gramatical mistakes and the book was to short,also im sorry to give you the news but holly told in one interviews that she plans to write a jurdan focused story again so probably we dont get Nicasia saphic story:(I loved the whole idea of to feel love is to feel known but i whised more from oak and wren interaction(i admit oak pining after wren was so funny and cute)Im going to be honest if the undersea story is from jurdan pov im not going to read it i love them but they story was already told,they already have they caracter arcs,The undersea book should be in the pov of somoane who has tides with that place(i will prefer to be in the pov of nicasia love intrest fighting for her hand and to be a woman)WHAT ARE THEY GOING TO NARATE????

Bro that's why I am leaving place for speculation bc it really DID feel like it took a sudden left turn into "what the people want" in a way that wasn't originally intended. Maybe by that HB meant we get to see Roiben and Kaye in the Lake of Masks, but I doubt it... And the whole villain thing? Jude wasn't even that horrible to Wren, she was very judgemental but ultimately listened to Oak right up until the final 50 pages. I too thought that it was a very nice that the point of the story was that you can't be loved without being known, I just wish we got more time with them and some kind of a breakthrough moment where Wren understands it, too.

And bro... in my Goodreads review I literally said I was terrified that she'd make the Undersea story about Jurdan... I mean. If that happens I am still gonna read it bc it's Jurdan. But I will be very annoyed. Like fr, why would I care what JUDE AND CARDAN have to say about a contest where the winner gets to marry Nicasia!!!!!!!! C'mon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Be serious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I wanna know how Nicasia feels about the fact that people keep going out of their way to avoid marrying her and then the only ones interested are in it for the title bc she is that much of an unbearably annoying bitch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I wonder what Madoc will do next... Will he plot against Cardan? Will he try to manipulate Jude again and give her advice about ruling? Or will he just give up, start spending time with his family and raising Leander? What do you think?

I think we got our answer in TPT! He seemed pretty content being a granpa and advisor (evil edition). Jude obviously isn't gonna banish him again, considering she let him join her in scheming against Bogdana - and if I'm not wrong, he even got to sit at the royal family table during the engagement party? I think his ideal role from now on is to hang out at the palace without any official titles, play with his grandchild, and give feral advice to his daughter the High Queen, then occasionally go rogue against whoever is trying to usurp the throne in a way that makes everyone go "DADDDD NOT AGAINNNN"

Idk about HB getting tired of wren since she was asked wich caracter she relates the most and she respondet that writing wren was complicated because it felt very personal since she relates with her very much i think it was because of tsh criticism and how a lot of people were going to read the sequel just for jurdan influenced a lot in her writing,like in every instagram post everyone was askin more jurdan i do fell bad because tpt was a big dissapoimemt for tsh and oakwren fans and i think holly tried to please everyone but also to make sure the book sells well but if it true that she was inflenced because of the public im concerned for her future books in faerie.

Yeah, I too think that is closer to the truth, but since there is no way of confirming it I don't wanna be presumptuous... Side note. It is soooo funny how a lot of the TSH reviews said Wren wasn't relatable and I am like LIARS!!!! Wren is VERY relatable, it's just that you guys don't WANT to relate to her bc she represents the pathetic, uncomfortable aspects of insecurity and love. That's what I mean when I say Wren is one of the least self-inserty YA protags I've read, you really don't want to imagine yourself in her place, but you can't help but relate. Jude is fun and swings a sword and is the socially acceptable type of insecure so she can still be the female wish fulfilment ideal, but Wren has nothing but her creepy powers and a traumatized personality and that makes her SO interesting imo

your tags make me 😭🖤 i don’t think there’s a higher fic compliment than “you Really Get the characters”

I'm super glad!!! I was the one leaving comments today, I binged all 10 chapters and couldn't contain my joy~

If nicasia get a redemption arc she would be the female version of kuzco from emperor new groom, i dont understand why people dont want that,we need more caracters like kuzco!!!(sorry but hes one of my favorite caracters growing up i just love his caracter arc)

(the same anon)The Emperor's New Groove.Now i dont look like a complete idiot for writing the name wrong :)

RIGHTTTTTTTTT once again the answer is "Bc most of the people reading these books are boring and only like problematic characters if they are sexy". If Nicasia wasn't such a massive toxic bitch, I would not have cried real tears in the middle of a bus reading about how deeply her love runs!!! I would absolutely like to read tf is happening inside her brain

Also. I absolutely NEVER notice typos until someone points them out, and this is one of the cooler ones, give that emperor a new groom (make Nicasia WLW)!!!!!

Why do you think Cardan took offence when Jude told him to play the bawd with Nicasia? I mean he was always hooking up with courtiers so it ain’t like he was celibate in the name of their unresolved feelings, did he want her to be jealous and was pissed that she seemed not to be?

Bro Nicasia straight up did the devil's tango with his best friend, at his own party, in his own bedroom, while he was downstairs, effectively breaking his heart into infinity, and Jude asked him to go back to her. Then there's the fact that he didn't like the idea of manipulating someone's feelings like that (as evident by the fact that he feels really really bad afterwards). But yeah based on the context we can safely assume it was also a healthy dose of "how DARE you ask me to seduce this other girl when you and I are in a DELIGHTFUL situationship" loloolololol

Honestly I was always neutral towards Taryn but your perspective really opened my eyes to some things. Jude is the ideal sword wielding tactician who the reader WANTS to be. But Taryn is more to realistic to what readers would ACTUALLY do, and I think that's where the dislike stems from. Tarn operates by playing the game through assimilating; blending in and adapting to be safe. Making herself small or big depending on when the situation calls for it. Securing herself a marriage that would guarantee her protection and some fortune, even if that backfired in the end. That girl watches and learns and mimics to stay alive because what else can she do?? Die in this place specifically designed to kill her?? People look at Jude as strong because of her kill count but Taryn has that same strength. Having the literal guts to murder someone you gave your heart to, who you bet your life and familial relationships against, only to have them chew your love for them and spit it out like nothing and manipulate you to see it as an act of love takes a lot of strength. Taryn's loneliness and insecurities feed themselves in a torturous loop so its no wonder that she makes poor decisions at times. I haven't read her novella but I'm going too now. Thanks for always being honest on your Book Takes™️ because I really needed to hear a new perspective. Taryn and Suren get such a bad rep for not handling their trauma exactly as Jude, or for not being more like Jude in general, and they deserve just as much love and appreciation!

Anon this was a DELIGHT to read, I agree with it all!!!! Taryn decided not to risk her life and try to win the game by not breaking any rules, and that is 100% what most of us would do. It's the ugly reality!!! You probably wouldn't be the poison-ingesting, sword-swinging, adrenaline-addicted sister, you'd more likely be the terrified one trying not to take one step away from the beaten path!!!!

Always happy to provide my thoughts, even if they are sometimes clownery incarnate, thank you for enjoying them~

I cant stop thinking about oak listening to that guard talking about wren beauty for 3 weecks no wonder he hates him and it funny because wren is like he used me he never liked me meanwhile oak is diyng of jealousy

He has been imprisoned by her, freezing his ass off, no enrichment, for WEEKS. And STILL he's like "Hm, this guard is cute. And older than me. And talks about Wren way too much. What the shit >:(" and "NOOOO JUDE LISTEN DON'T SAVE ME YET PLEASE I'VE GOT THIS I WILL FIGURE IT OUT DON'T TRY BREAKING ME OUT OR WREN WILL STAY MAD AT ME FOREVER". Meanwhile Suren is planning manslut test number 4307 just because she needs to keep torturing herself with the thought that he doesn't ACTUALLY like her or care for her in any way shape or form. Treat yourself better kids why are you doing this to yourselves (it's fun)

Ok Ok so I've been thinking this for. quite a while like even before Stolen Heir was released. it's kind of controversial because I might be making mountain out of a molehill but -

I think Jurdan fans border on being disrespectful to Holly Black at times... the problem isn't what one chooses to focus on even though that annoys me too, like it's not like people can control the fact that they focus more/love a character more than the other. But I'm starting to see this especially on Instagram and Goodreads, and I think I have good reason to believe HB is more active on insta and Goodreads is like, the book reviewing site, if there's any place she may look for comments or critique it's that.

and my problem lies with the language used . HB can announce she's working on something and can give hints about it and I've seen soo many people just outright tell her "I don't care about [x] and [y] just give me JURDAN!!" or anything along that vein , there's also "I'm only reading this for Jurdan lol I kind of couldn't care less about []".

It genuinely annoys me a lot !! And I wish I could say to each their own but ykw? At some point it starts to feel like if these two characters aren't involved people don't even try to make an effort to connect with the other characters, the new protagonist, etc. To be honest your page was a breath of fresh air because I don't even see a lot of folks focus on ANYTHING in TFOTA other than this ship.

There's also the irony that so many people pride themselves on loving Jude, their morally grey female rage character, but refuse to discuss Taryn with nuance. Or Vivi, sometimes. It's weird how so many people love Madoc (justified, I like him too) then refuse to think that hey, maybe Taryn's way of coping with faerie is different than Jude and that affects her actions! something something fandom misogyny

The above unrelated paragraph is just to say that a Nicasia focused book is something many people just absolutely will not be able to handle lmao and I so dearly wish Jude and Cardan's 'screentime' is few and far in between just so that it's less palatable. But oh well.

(And after Prisoner's Throne it worries me because with the implication that the Nicasia focused book might have Jude and Cardan POVs I feel like she's catering more to these people now.

If that's how things turn out that would genuinely make me really sad because I didn't pick up her books after reading TCP, I started with Spiderwick Chronicles, then Modern Faerie Tales, and I love the way she creates atmosphere, her worldbuilding, her depiction of the weird and creepy and magical. I especially think that's her strongest suit, more than characterization, so something like this that hinges more on specific characters genuinely turns me off.)

AGREED SO MUCH WITH ALL OF ITTT I too noticed the really dumb people in her comments crapping on everything that isn't a new Jurdan book... Like, the woman was writing books and enjoyed fame 15 years before Jurdan happened. She obviously has a lot to say about her world. Why the hell would you want her to stop developing it and only focus on 2 characters??? I was a big Spiderwick fan as a kid, and when I read TFOTA I had no idea it was by the same writer but I could TELL the vibes were all there. I too think that is her specialty and I'd rather get 10 stories on different characters than 5 on Jurdan.

I want the Undersea book to be about Nicasia and part of it is because I agree, I think most of the fandom would HATE it and it would fry their brains, and I want to see it. It is dumb and petty of me, but it would be sweet vindication for all the clowns screaming into my ear that Taryn is problematic actually in case I didn't notice. Ultimately I know it is a fruitless endeavor. TFOTA has the misfortune of being too good and complicated for its main audience of tiktok book fans, but also too bad and simplified to spread into more general, unspecified fantasy circles where its themes could catch the attention of people who would know how to appreciate them. That means there is only a small portion of fans who both like the books AND have the critical thinking skills to appreciate all the things they do right outside of romance/basic female wish fulfilment.

In the end, judging by TPT, we are gonna have to take the L and accept we bet on the wrong horse and minority does not make the money. But at least we will be there together to make a mountain out of a molehill!

baby oak-i dont want to marry anyone😡

Adult oak when wren doesnt want to marry him-😭😭😭💔💔(someone play the lute and bring ice cream!!!)Oak being a loverboy that secretly wishes for wren to not break the engangment and actually mary him was the funiest paralel in the book and just him being a SIMP in general,hes so relatable i would too do anything to protect wren from the world

Oak (8) being like "I DON'T WANT TO MARRY SUREN I DON'T WANT TO MARRY ANYONE CAN'T WE JUST HELP HER WITHOUT THAT PART" VS Oak (17) making all his scenes various shades of "PLEASE WREN CHANGE YOUR MIND PLEASE MARRY ME PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE". Both are delightfully childish in completely opposite directions. Boys will be boys <3

so glad to WHINE ABOUT TPT.

it should have been wren pov, I agree it seemed like there was a more interesting story going on on her side! And your theory it got rewritten for more jurdan makes sense … also so fucking stupid it’s third person - is there some asinine publishing rule going on? I know readers like to self insert these days, maybe the publisher was worried bc oak is male/a love interest? dumb. dumb.

why didn’t vivi come to the engagement feast? wren had such a hang up on what Vivi said about her, I wanted that resolved (and I just wanted Vivi in general!!!!) wren meeting her human family off screen without a mention of how it went fuckin SUCKED. at absolutely no point was I convinced she should be staying in the house of her abusers being a ruler for people she didn’t know instead of returning to her REAL family. and she didn’t even bond w oak’s family either.

I also enjoyed the dialogue in the garden scene so much, but without wren’s pov it felt out of nowhere or even like she was using sex as self harm. she is so deeply self loathing and so convinced oak will move on for her, so her propositioning him feels like she was trying to rip off the bandaid and get him done with her faster. again, I have to assume because the last time we heard her thoughts was when she would DO that kind of thing. if she’s had this great character growth we don’t fuckin know!!!!!

I had fun but it was also such a disappointment and wren deserves better

Welcome welcome to the whine party~

YEAHHHH presumably it was single POV for the mystery of why Wren is acting so weird, but imo it didn't work. It was so so so painfully obvious and the plot twist didn't twist, so why not just give her the POV. As for the third person, all the Cardan POV content we ever got was also in third person, so maybe HB just doesn't want to write her male leads from first person? The self insert thing occurred to me too, but Wren is one of the least self-insert-able characters I've ever read in YA, and she too had the first person, so idk honestly. Maybe someone who has more experience with HB's novels could figure it out.

I WAS WAITING FOR VIVI THE ENTIRE TIMEEEE like out of all of Oak's family, she was the one who hurt Wren the worst. So where was she!! She lives in the human world, fine, but she was there for Oak's official heir party, so why not for his engagement??? Heather would have Never missed it in a million years. The lack of content regarding Wren connecting to either of the families was sooooooooo bleh, since we KNOW that being a part of one is incredibly important for her and she desperately wants to be accepted by both Oak's big dramatic yet loving family and her own human one. Her returning to the Court of Teeth makes no sense, she only has the worst memories of the place, and it doesn't even EXIST as a ruling body anymore.

SAME on the garden scene! Like you said, it sounded like the Wren from TSH, who used his interest (which she perceived as customary and short-term) as a way to punish herself and treat herself as someone undeserving of proper love. Okay, it's because of the Endless Hunger of her magic, but it's strange to never deal with her pretty unhealthy views of her sexuality. IF ANYTHING, in the final chapter she STILL thinks she is too much and needs too much and won't be able to function properly in a relationship, and we just,,,, never get closure,,, Oak is just like "don't worry" and she's like "ok" and that's it. Head in my hands. This was a romance focused duology and somehow Wren didn't even get her proper closure on that.

Literally my takeaway. Fun. Disappointing. Wren my baby you deserved more.

hello! this ask ended up becoming a very long tangent so feel free to ignore it lmao. just had some thoughts on tpt and idk who else to rant to

i feel like i generally enjoyed tpt but also agree w a lot of criticism ive seen about it (was definitely put off by wrens lack of agency and so disappointed that we didnt see her reunite w her parents…that phone call w her mom was the most emotionally evocative scene for me in the first book and lowkey made me cry).

idk if someone already brought this up but a small thing that bothered me was that the thistlewitch’s bargain with oak never came back to bite him or was even mentioned again. specifically the exchange where she asked him to grant her a request upon becoming king, and he agreed since he didnt plan to be king anyway even though she implied she’d seen otherwise in his future. i get that this is foreshadowing ultimately that oak would become a king through marrying wren rather than inheriting, but it surprised me that the ramifications of him thus having to put his money where his mouth is re:thistlewitch never actually come up when he has the whole ‘oh i’d still be a king by marriage’ realization in tpt.

like it seems like it should be plot relevant that oak is now indebted to a hag who is somewhat implied to be conspiring (or at least affiliated) with mother marrow / bogdana, given that he specifically questions why mother marrow sent him off to the thistlewitch to get info, when she already could have told him that wren had melliths heart. idk was that part ever explained? i listened to the audiobook so if it was i might have zoned out or something, but i lowkey kept expecting that piece to be revealed as part of the hag conspirators’ plan

i guess that its just a red herring having finished the book now, but i was still confused that oak never even reflects back on it in his inner monologue at some point, especially when he realizes that he is still on track to becoming a king when he marries wren? like the book just ends with him being like ‘i guess ill be a king :) for you :)’ so i suppose hes either forgotten about the thistlewitch or doesnt care

maybe i read far too much into this one interaction or just missed something. but idk it just seems like a missed opportunity and/or dropped plot line to me and i really feel like that red string corkboard charlie day meme just thinking about it.

thank u for reading if you got through it all :,)

No worries, I enjoy reading ppl's takes in my inbox, be it positive or negative~ SAME the Thistlewitch was the BACKBONE to all my TPT predictions and then she ended up irrelevant. Then when the entire consort VS king/queen topic popped up I was like OH SMART, this could be a good middle ground. But no. Despite all his best attempts at avoiding it, he is still getting a crown, hence the hags can still collect that boon one day. And what if the boon is "Reignite the Court of Teeth's insurgence and march against Elfhame and put your hag bride on the throne". What then.