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After having been saved by Lyn and Tared and taken to their super-secret bunker, Creon’s doing his best impersonation of a corpse.  Em keeps busy by not thanking the healers who tend to Creon and later telling the Resistance leaders that yes, I wanted him dead at first, too, but have you tried his pancakes?  Can you afford to lose talent like that?  The Resistance is like, pancakes are tasty and delicious, good point.

 

An alf, not the cat-eating alien, though that is the one I always think of, recognizes Em as the fae island baby she dropped off in humanland twenty years ago.  Em freaks out because I guess she didn’t believe she was half-fae up until now?  Next thing you know, Creon blows up a door and seems very hungover as he waits for everyone suspicious of his motives to leave him and Em alone with his motives.

 

Corpse Creon proceeds to yell at Em that she could never love a monster then turns and stomps back to his room.  While Em is initially like, sorry, what?  I was really busy not thanking people, she decides oh fine, guess I’ll just live in the hallway now.

 

Eventually Lyn and Tared get Em out of the hallway and into training (with a sword!) and Naxi tells her, look, Em, with his super amazing demon emotional empathy radar, this sucks for him since everyone here wants to, you know, bludgeon him to death and have a dance party with sparklers to celebrate it.  Em’s like, oh! right, it’s maybe not always about me!  But it probably is, right?  Isn’t it?

 

Em then overhears Lyn and Tared loudly talking about her, which is totally normal for them, nothing to see here, and realizes Creon had a crush on Lyn and THAT’s why he’s listening to Enya in the corner of his room and writing bad poetry in his Trapper Keeper.

 

She confronts Creon by blowing up his door and giving him brownie fudge ice cream along with a copy of Bridget Jones’s Diary.  He quickly confesses that yes, he sucks.  He could have helped the Resistance kill his evil mom, but he needed to hide under his comforter with cookie dough to recover from his heartache. 

 

He proceeds to throw a hand over his face and declares Em shouldn’t like him because he’s a monster and she’s courting darkness and…. but Em, determined to get to some Tiddlywinks, is all blah blah blah, it’s fine! 

 

He’s undeterred, though, and carries on like a freshman theater major until she reassures him for literally the millionth time, really, I counted, that it’s cool he’s a monster, she’s a monster too!  She has yet to thank everyone for helping them! 

 

Then Tiddlywinks.

 

“We should have trusted each other!” they soon cry in unison, and I’m pretty sure they’ll have a self-help book coming out soon.  But now there’s the problem that he goes all quiet-creepy when he hears the alves have stopped baking their delicious cookies.  So he probably shouldn’t stay there, but it’s time for Em to go train with Tared because Creon doesn’t want to train her because he doesn’t know how to do it without physically abusing her, the way he was taught.  Umm…

 

Off Em goes to yell at Tared for telling Creon that he was unlovable.  She’s seriously the most ungracious guest ever.  Since she’s in a particularly twenty-year-old-sassy-heroine-in-love-with-a-three-hundred-fifty-year-old-mage-who-is-the-greatest-mage-ever-really-trust-us mood, Tared takes her to the battlefield where everyone died while the greatest mage ever took lavender baths and drank white wine. 

 

He tells her about how most of his family was killed so maybe she can stop being such a brat, and she’s all Creon took the pain from the people he killed!  And Talmard’s all, omg, that’s crazy, let’s go home, it’s Resistance taco night.

 

Unfortunately, a bunch of alves want to kill Creon and it’s a whole thing because now Creon goes all crazy eyes nuts whenever Em’s not standing by with his binky.  About a hundred of them try to take him out in the hallway, but wise Em steps up and tells them they’ll have to kill her, too.  But the alves are like, bummer, we can’t, you’re just too damned amazing, Em. 

 

Having proven herself by being a non-nonsense twenty-year-old who shrugs a lot and has been there an entire week, Em is obviously invited to a Resistance meeting where they want her input.  The Mother isn’t telling people that Creon’s a missing, traitorous bastard, which they find…odd.  Then Edored comes in and starts screaming about binky boy being allowed in the library.  They all think Edored needs a calming chew, so he gets mad and walks off to prove them wrong.

 

My favorite alf decides to try to work Creon up to his complete nutso level, hoping he goes nuclear and destroys Lyn’s books.  How, you ask?  How does one mentally destroy a three-hundred-year-and-fifty-year-old-great-great-amazing-mage?  With the ole classic, “Run away, that’s what you’re good at.”  And bammo, Creon’s now destructor of the universe.

 

To stop Creon’s meltdown, Em stuffs the binky in his mouth.  He spits it out, she tries it again, and he spits it out again, but on her third attempt he starts to suck on it and the crisis is over.

 

Lyn’s all mad at Edored because she loves her books, and someone decides maybe they should find Creon, so Em volunteers and I’m like, that’s obvious, right everybody?  That Em would go?  Oh wait, I forgot to mention, they’re supposed to be keeping their Tiddlywinking secret from everyone, but, ummm, these are all supernatural creatures who can probably hear you two because you play Tiddlywinks pretty loudly, but Em at some point says thank god there’s a door so they can’t hear our Tiddlywinks, and I’m like, I guess she’s new to living in a multi-unit dwelling?

 

She finds Creon in a cave by himself, because of course she would, and he declares he must leave her there because he’s an unpredictable baby man and I’m wondering how exactly we got to this point with the Silent Death.  Em agrees she should stay with the Resistance in the Underground so she can hone her leadership skills for battle, and I’m like, okay, sure, why not.

 

Creon flies off for six months, wait, no, six weeks, I’m sure Em’s bits would have literally imploded if he’d told her it’d be months.

 

Em now has the sads and having given her sanctuary and saving her and Creon’s lives has completely vanished in her shot-term memory.  All these mean people feeding and protecting her made Creon fly off and leave her because he’s a grown man who can make his own decisions and he decided this!  But Creon’s able to send her mind messages that make her happy, so that’s nice.  Still, f you all for helping us and being worried that the greatest baby man mage might blow you all up!  He wouldn’t hurt me!

 

Edored becomes the focus of her temper tantrums, so when he tries to make nice, Em loses her mind and breaks his nose seven times in a sparring match to show she’s seriously the most abusive guest ever.  Tared’s all, nice form, but you’re kind of an a*&*^*&, go talk to Lyn. 

 

Lyn’s all, oh, right, so you’re Tiddlywinking with Creon, I get it.  And Em’s is all oh ha ha, what?  No!  You couldn’t know that, we’ve been so amazing at keeping our Tiddlywinking quiet!  We have a door! 

 

Turns out that Tared has bonded to Lyn – if Lyn runs off with Creon, Tared’ll have to kill himself.  That’s why he and Edored are so mean to Creon and want him to go away – so Tared won’t uncontrollable kill himself.  I think maybe alves need therapy.

 

Em goes to apologize to Edored and try to explain Creon’s not a threat, but can’t tell him about the Tiddlywinking because, I have no idea, these two just really like drama.  Where I get lost on this is that they have Naxi, who could tell all of the Resistence if the Tiddlywinking is a problem – if Creon’s controlling Em, which would make him a mental genius since he gets all nutso crazy eyes when barely baited by a not-so-bright alf.  He could also probably bargain with one of them to confirm he’s not controlling Em, but where’s the fun in that?  Maybe the Resistance are just honestly the dumbest people in the world at some things?

 

So Em does the only thing she can to prove her honesty to an alf – she pinky promises Edored that Creon won’t chase Lyn again, which is all he needs.  They’re family now, so off they go to parties to drink and play bells, which, obviously, Em is really good at.  Until suddenly she feels like she’s being burned alive and someone is cutting her arm!  Noooo!  Oh wait, it’s not really happening, what is this?  What’s going on?!  Sigh.  After way too long Em realizes it’s Creon!  Omg!  Lyn’s all, it’s cool, he’s in the Golden Court, I tried to set him on fire there, he’s just giving us a very dramatic message.  Maybe he could have just sent you one of those mind messages, no, nevermind, this had a much better effect for the alves who saw you screaming at what Creon was doing to you.

 

And off we go to the Golden Court to endure Em and Creon’s dramatic tendencies in a new location!

 

Em finds Creon’s stuff in a cubby by the blood gate to prove he is on the island, but pretty quickly Lyn says they need to boogie as a fae calls out to her.  Turns out it’s the Lord of the Golden Court, Agenor, who’s all, I think maybe being a part of murdering thousands of people is, you know, bad.   He’s changed his mind and wants to help the Resistance, so come on out, Tared and Em.  The duo were hiding while physical seven-year-old Lyn dealt with the threat of a fae Lord.  Worst guest ever.    

 

Agenor and Em have the same dirt water eyes (which I don’t think she mentions again in the series, I think Em refers to her eyes as green-something going forward?) so this is a family reunion where Em is determined to show of her sassy ungrateful guest skills to her newly discovered Pops. 

 

Allie, Em’s mom, was a slave in the Crimson Court.  She was wily, though, and was able to best the twelve-hundred-year-old Agenor in five different bargains, which I think says more about him than her.  The Mother grew suspicious of Agenor and locked him up, foiling their plans to have him fly baby Em away so she wouldn’t be bound.  Instead, Allie said she had a stillborn and vamoosed.  Agenor knows she’s still alive because one of those bargains was lifelong and is still on his wrist.

 

Em’s not impressed with any of this because it was assumed her dad had abandoned her mom, so clearly, Em must hate him with the full might of her sassiness.  Yet she expects him to trust her about Creon, who he has only known as a villainous murderer for hundreds of years. 

 

After some summary of the past twenty years, Agenor’s like, welp, here we go to murder all the Mother lovers in my court, meaning he and his loyal guards, along with Lyn and Tared now, are going to kill all of the people at the court who are loyal to the Mother.  I guess points for decisiveness?  Nice to see you, let’s go murdering.

 

Em takes it upon herself to decline the murdering by acting stupid and feigning that fighting scares her so she can see Agenor’s doodles in the library.  This side quest ends with snooping Em hearing a noise in the hallway, investigating, and finding a fae who swears her innocence as a Mother lover since she’s there by accident and is also a mother of twins.  Em’s a horrific guest but decent person, so she lets the fae go, knowing it might be a mistake that could get them all killed later.  But she’s Em, no one will really care.  And bam, all the Mother lovers are murdered, well, except that one, who will definitely not fly back to the Mother and tell her what happened.  So it’s back to business as usual for our little group.  Oh, and Agenor has locked up Creon, but humanely, because he’s Agenor.

 

With the murdering over, Em’s quest is now Tiddlywinks.  After slowly realizing she and her dad probably have similar blood, Em opens the blood gate and visits Creon, who’s honestly living his best life in a cell by himself.  He let himself get caught so Em would meet her da and he could have enough solitude to finally know true happiness, and I think maybe Em should take a hint.  He tells her not to bust him out, it’ll just be a few months, and she’s like, you don’t love me!  But she’s fine with it after a round of Tiddlywinks.

 

Em, Tared, and Lyn stay at the court with Em “going on forest walks” to get in her Tiddywinks, until Agenor decides she needs a chaperone.  She’s like, cool, Tared, you’re my chaperone, I’m going on a wink-wink forest walk. He’s all, okay, fine, I hate fae, you do you, and as she’s skipping to the blood gate, she notices the forest is strangely quiet. 

 

My first thought is the pixies have cleared out because they can’t take any more Tiddlywinks noises, but pixi Irie tells her they’re being invaded!  What?!  No!  With the promise of strawberries and lemon cake, the pixies agree to risk their lives to bring her intel, even though Agenor is an oaf to them. 

 

Em bursts into Agenor’s very important business meeting and they’re all, what an adorable half-fae baby, coming in here like she dropped her ice cream cone and wants a new one. Then she throws down the name Ophion and they all freak out.  An invasion is imminent, the Mother lovers are gathering to attack at any moment, so let’s have a casual hour long discussion if the greatest magey-mage-demon-binky-boy might be useful in a fight against fae coming to kill them all.

 

Eventually Agenor saunters out to fetch him, and I just kept thinking, your castle could blow up any second, any chance you all might hurry this up?  Nope, we get a long scene of Creon acting all too cool for school as Em demonstrates she’s really sassy, not kind of sassy, really super sassy today.  The display of sassiness goes on for about eighty-seven hours when they all mostly agree that maybe the most powerful mage demon ever could help since they’re  outnumbered 5 – 1… Now, thoughts on what we should do to not be murdered?  Say, maybe we should get a talking stick and take turns, oh, and we need another ice breaker. 

 

Creon and Em take a field trip back to the Underground to get some fae killing blood and pasta, it’s Italian night.  While there Em finally confesses during their ten-hour-long what are you thinking about?  No, what are you thinking about? conversation that she’s panicked because it’s all her fault, that she let the fae go and she might suck at killing people and here we are.  Creon wisely reasons that they were coming sooner or later and being compassionate is a good thing, so let it go, and you’re our heroine, you’ll totally be able to handle killing people.  There are four books, we’ll be fine.

 

Back they go to kill the invading Mother lovers and lots of east wall, south wall, plans plans are tossed around.  Em and Creon are sent to protect the south wall.  Now, here I get a little confused.  Em’s wearing yet another dress.  Okay, points for not being leathers.  But wouldn’t you be loaded with red material somewhere?  It’s like in Buffy, why are you all not carrying around holy water everywhere you go? 

 

Boom blam, duck, spin colors colors and our couple is fine, they survived the first wave.  Then the ground opens up and Em and her dress tumble down into another rock enclosure thing.  It was kind of confusing.  As a hundred plus fae warriors come for her, she’s out of color and can only scream for Creon to help her.  Before you can say Cactus Lady Bits, the warriors are all killing themselves.  Em looks up and sees Creon hanging out on a ledge all happy nutso eyes.

 

She needs a fae to fly her up to give him his binky, but Ophion survived the demon magic onslaught so she has to deal with that.  Lyn burns onto the scene and is about to kill Ophion, but Em decides she knows best and makes a deal where he’ll get back to the Crimson Court alive is he answers her questions honestly.  She learns the Mother lovers think her mom is dead, and it’s like, so now they know she was your mom, not maybe the best idea?  Also that bindings can be broken, and it’s like, you couldn’t have used the library for that?  That’s all she gets, and it’s like, well, okay.

 

Off she goes to find Creon, who’s sitting by himself on the beach, because of course he is.  He’s upset about the demon power that just saved Em’s life, and it’s like between that and the peacefulness of the cell with no one around, maybe you’re just not that into her?  He is, of course, so Tiddlywinks.  And he finally concedes to let Naxi maybe help him with his demon powers so he doesn’t go all nutso eyeso when they go back to the Underground.

 

Em has one more conversation with Agenor where she puts all of her terrible guest skills on display as she berates him in general, then calls him an idiot repeatedly, refusing to see where maybe she was not the best with communication, but that’s neither here nor there.  She now thinks just maybe she doesn’t hate the father who’s wanted to find her for the last twenty years and is terrified of Allie dying.  And it’s like, hurrah? she sure gave it to the only relative in her life, a relative who just broke with the only life he’s ever know and just wants her to be safe?  Nice job?

 

They are now headed back to the Underground where Em is going to figure out how to break those bindings!  And if it’s war Mother wants, then by the gods Em will make bargains with all the Mother lover warriors and ask them pointless questions before she sends them home!  Huzzah!

 

 

Notes:

 

I find the magic color theory and idea of phoenixes really interesting.  As of this summary I haven’t written about Court of Blood and Bindings, which maybe I’ll go on more about the magic, but who knows. 

 

I also absolutely adore that this series does not need to mate everyone.  The alves suicidally bond, okay, no problem, but it's crazy refreshing to not have all the mate gooiness. 

 

While I appreciate the attempt to make Em and Creon’s relationship more than screaming “You’re mine!” during Tiddlywinks, their constant insecurities with each other and life gets exhausting.  It’s not one conversation, it’s about 85% of them.  And Em is very high handed with everyone, I guess maybe it’s youth since the rest are hundreds of years old, but it seemed like I was supposed to agree with her that she was being constantly wronged.  The Resistance saved yours and Creon’s life, full stop.  It’s hard to listen to her just rail about everything, and then lay into Agenor for being a terrible father when he couldn’t even find her. 

 

Having finished the series now, I like Em’s magic, and that she’s smart, just ask her, but I don’t know how much I like her as a person.  Maybe because the full timeline is over just a few months so there’s no time to be likeable, but she’s just not any fun. 

 

Creon is just straight up painful through the entire book.  There’s no reprieve from him hating himself, not one little snack break from it.  And it’s also a little odd to me that they never use Creon’s telepathy again in a tangible way.  They just always know what each is thinking because they’re like peanut butter and jelly.

 

I like the story and most of the other characters, I just wish these two could have mellowed out a bit.  Spoiler alert for Ruins of Seas and Souls, they don’t.  I really wish there was just one scene where the rest of the group shoots them with tranquilizer darts so they have an enjoyable dinner.

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