The Wood Queen (Iron Witch Series #2)

by Karen Mahoney

Overview

"The wood monster is dead. I know this is true because I killed it. And yet my dreams are still full of fear and pain . . ." To keep her best friend, Navin, from being killed at the hands of vicious wood elves, Donna Underwood stole the elixir of life. Now she’s facing an alchemist tribunal while her mother lies dying, succumbing to the elven curse that shattered her mind. In desperation, Donna seeks an audience with Aliette, the fierce and manipulative Wood Queen, who offers a deal: if Donna can use her strange and burgeoning powers to help the wood elves, Aliette will free her mother from the curse. Along with Navin and Xan, the half-fey guy she’s falling for, Donna struggles to unlock the secrets of her iron tattoos in time to save her mother’s life. But some secrets are better left untold. Book 2 in the explosive Iron Witch series

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780738729756
Publisher:	North Star Editions
Publication date:	02/08/2012
Series:	Iron Witch Series , #2
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	336
File size:	3 MB
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Karen Mahoney (United Kingdom) has been published in the anthologies The Eternal Kiss and Kiss Me Deadly (both by Running Press). She has a highly trafficked blog and is also part of a group blog that includes New York Timesbestselling authors. Visit her online at KazMahoney.com.

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Editorial Reviews

If you like Fae, magic, alchemy and the young adult genre, this series will hold your attention and not let go.” —USA Today’s “Happily Ever After” blog

“An exciting installment in this fantasy series.” —Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

As Donna Underwood faces an alchemist tribunal for the Elixer theft she committed in The Iron Witch (Flux/Llewellyn, 2011/VOYA February 2011), she learns from a reluctant fey messenger that the Wood Queen will free Donna's mother from a fatal curse if Donna opens the door to Faerie so the wood elves can return home. With the combined support and distractions of Xan, Navin, and Robert Lee, she completes the task and saves her mother but does not consider what will enter as well as leave her world. Her journey and the explosive ending reveal new information about the alchemists' efforts to control—rather than enhance—her extraordinary powers. The next episode will center on Donna's exile to London, her punishment, to study under the prominent alchemist Miranda Blackhouse. Donna's tumultuous self-discovery, which includes magic, family, and romance, often makes the reader wonder if Donna even remembers her task. Pondering her feelings for Xan and Navin, she accidentally discovers her strength, which the adults fear, and eventually concludes that pure good and evil, as well as clear choices, do not exist. She grows to distrust all but Navin and her mother. Her mother's journals change her view of family history, but Donna's powers reach far beyond her wisdom and produce a cataclysmic conclusion. The steamier romance scenes and dialogue lightly sprinkled with swearing make this series more appropriate for junior and senior high girls who thrive on escapist, slightly edgy fantasy. Reviewer: Lucy Schall

VOYA - Lucy Schall

Gr 8 Up—Seventeen-year-old Donna Underwood is being tried for her theft of the Elixir of Life and related events from Iron Witch (Flux, 2011). The hearing is being conducted by Quentin Frost, archmaster of the Order of the Dragon with members of all four alchemical Orders present. Donna's mother, Rachel, is already in residential care and has taken a turn for the worse so that she is now under sedation for seizures of unknown origin. Donna asks her half-fey pal and potential love interest, Xan, to examine her mother, and he detects that Rachel is elf cursed. Donna must make a deal with her nemesis, Aliette the Wood Queen of the dark elves, in order to save her mom. Mahoney establishes up several plot threads that don't play out satisfactorily. Although the hearing is set up as a major event, the result isn't proportional to the narrative tension created. On another front, Donna agrees to do Aliette's bidding to save her mother without considering potential traps or consulting her friends. She goes to a fair amount of trouble to get her mother's journal but readers don't see her learning about her power to open gates between worlds, which the queen wants her to use. Although fans of Iron Witch will certainly be interested in this volume, it doesn't stand on its own, and Donna doesn't come across as a very smart or resourceful heroine.—Eric Norton, McMillan Memorial Library, Wisconsin Rapids, WI

School Library Journal

The Iron Witch (2011) ended with the restoration of Donna Underwood's friends and the death of the monster that haunted her nightmares. However, Donna's first journal entry in this sequel states that her "dreams are still full of fear and pain, even though it is a different sort of fear and a new kind of pain," promising an exciting installment in this fantasy series. Saving her friends has serious consequences among the secret company of alchemists her family belongs to. During the trial for her so-called offenses against the Order of the Dragon, Donna is approached by a messenger of the Wood Queen, who--in a later meeting--promises to restore her mother to health if she opens the door to Faerie. Characters from the previous book are joined by a few (possibly) minor additions. With the exception of her friend Navin and the is-he-or-isn't-he boyfriend Xan, she never knows whom she can trust. This additional stress doubles the story's tension and adds to the uncertainty of her success. The shocking climax and many unresolved plot threads predict at least one more novel to come. Readers of the previous book will welcome this addition and wait impatiently for the next book in the series. (Urban fantasy. 13-16)

Kirkus Reviews