A Court of Mist and Fury

When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a terrifying creature arrives to demand retribution. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she knows about only from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor is not truly a beast, but one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled her world.

At least, he’s not a beast all the time.

As she adapts to her new home, her feelings for the faerie, Tamlin, transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie she’s been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae. But something is not right in the faerie lands. An ancient, wicked shadow is growing, and Feyre must find a way to stop it, or doom Tamlin-and his world-forever.

Trigger Warning: Abuse, PTSD, Sex Scenes, Sexual Assault, Trauma, Violence

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My Thoughts

As much as I enjoyed A Court of Thorns and Roses, I LOVE ME SOME A Court of Mist and Fury. I was reading faster than my brain could comprehend the words and found myself having to go back and reread paragraphs in my furious obsession to get more, more, more.

“To the stars who listen – and the dreams that are answered.”

The book picks up not long after the end of the first book with Feyre and Tamlin back together (#lovebirds) and Feyre struggling with the aftermath of all that happened Under the Mountain (you know just the usual killing, fighting, dying, being brought back to life and her newfound Fae immortality). Fortunately, she has the love of her life, her soul mate to help her, right? NOT! Feyre is slowly withering away as she tries to deal with the trauma she managed to survive, plan her wedding and learn about her new role post wedding. As she’s fading into nothingness, Tamlin just seems so disconnected keeping Feyre guarded and barely letting her leave the manor (your girl is waking up every night vomiting from nightmares and you don’t hear or see this??? I think not. What a dick!). One day Tamlin (#littlebitch) is leaving to assess a new threat in the land and Feyre pleads with him to let her go. What does he do? He puts a shield up around the manor which imprisoners Feyre inside (What the F*$%????).

“I had done everything – everything for that love. I had ripped myself to shreds, I had killed innocents and debased myself, and he had sat beside Amarantha on that throne. And he couldn’t do anything, hadn’t risked it – hadn’t risked being caught until there was only one night left, and all he’d wanted to do wasn’t free me, but fuck me. And when Amarantha had broken me, when she had snapped my bones and made my blood boil in its veins, he’d just knelt and begged her. He hadn’t tried to kill her, hadn’t crawled for me. Yes, he’d fought for me – but I’d fought harder for him.”

I will say that part of me felt like Tamlin’s change in behavior was a bit sudden since in the first book he seemed so attentive, protective, and loving and now he comes across as controlling (abusive?) and easily persuaded by others. But the more I thought about his behaviors in ACOTAR – what a little bitch he was when it came to Amarantha and helping Feyre survive – maybe this behavior wasn’t so out of character after all. What’s worse is at least if he’d changed his behaviors and maybe come to terms with the trauma he experienced I would have some sympathy. But he doesn’t. He ruins his whole house while she gone with Rhys the first time and leaves it in shambles so she can see what he did while she was gone. Why? Because he loves her so much. No. That’s very manipulative.

And then there’s Rhysand (😍😍😍) my newest love (Bye Tamlin!). Now I’m not usually interested in a knight riding in on a white horse to save a damsel in distress (#Feminist) but apparently, I’m not opposed to a super-hot High Lord with massive black wings clad in black leather flying in to do a bit of saving (and Feyre really isn’t a damsel, she just needs a bit of help right now). There’s a bit of drama but basically Feyre goes with Rhys to his home in Velaris (oh the magic and secrets surrounding this). While there she meets his “family”. We are able to experience both Feyre and Rhys healing slowly and helping each other. Rhys empowers Feyre, teaches her to read, trains her, and helps her heal.

This is where the book goes from a 9 to a 15!!!

“He thinks he’ll be remembered as the villain in the story. But I forgot to tell him that the villain is usually the person who locks up the maiden and throws away the key. He was the one who let me out.”

We get to meet Rhys’s “family” – Amren, Azriel, Cassian, and Morrigan who are all part of Rhys’s inner circle, and basically one big dysfunctional family, who love and take care of each other.

“He had stayed. And fought for me. Week after week, he’d fought for me, even when I had no reaction , even when I had barely been able to speak or bring myself to care if I lived or died or ate or starved. I couldn’t leave him to his own dark thoughts, his own guilt. He’d shouldered them alone long enough.”

“So I said, “He is lucky to have all of you.”
“No,” she said softly—more gently than I’d ever heard. “We are lucky to have him, Feyre.”
I turned from the door. “I have known many High Lord,” Amren continued, studying her paper. “Cruel ones, cunning ones, weak ones, powerful ones. But never one that dreamed. Not as he does.”
“Dreams of what?” I breathed.
“Of peace. Of freedom. Of a world united, a world thriving, Of something better—for all of us.”

There is so much that happens in this book from action, suspense, and romance, to learning more about the courts and their High Lords, getting to know so much more of each character’s history, to what love should look like whether it’s romantic love or loving a friend.

 And the ending…

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Favorite Book Quotes

“There are good days and hard days for me—even now. Don’t let the hard days win.”

“I was not a pet, not a doll, not an animal.
I was a survivor, and I was strong.
I would not be weak, or helpless again
I would not, could not be broken. Tamed.”

“I am broken and healing, but every piece of my heart belongs to you.”

“There are different kinds of darkness,” Rhys said. I kept my eyes shut. “There is the darkness that frightens, the darkness that soothes, the darkness that is restful.” I pictured each. “There is the darkness of lovers, and the darkness of assassins. It becomes what the bearer wishes it to be, needs it to be. It is not wholly bad or good.”

“If you were going to die, I was going to die with you. I couldn’t stop thinking it over and over as you screamed, as I tried to kill her: you were my mate, my mate, my mate.”

“Not consort, not wife. Feyre is High Lady of the Night Court. My equal in every way; she would wear my crown, sit on a throne beside mine. Never sidelined, never designated to breeding and parties and child rearing. My queen.”

“And I wondered if love was too weak a word for what he felt, what he’d done for me. For what I felt for him.”

“My friend through many dangers. My lover who had healed my broken and weary soul. My mate who had waited for me against all hope, despite all odds.”

“And I realized—I realized how badly I’d been treated before, if my standards had become so low. If the freedom I’d been granted felt like a privilege and not an inherent right.”

“I wonder if some part of me knew what was waiting for me. That I would never be a gentle grower of things, or someone who burned like fire—but that I would be quiet and enduring and as faceted as the night. That I would have beauty, for those who knew where to look, and if people didn’t bother to look, but to only fear it … Then I didn’t particularly care for them, anyway. I wonder if, even in my despair and hopelessness, I was never truly alone. I wonder if I was looking for this place—looking for you all.”

“Many atrocities have been done in the name of the greater good.”

“You are my salvation, Feyre.”

“I heard every word between you. I knew you could take care of yourself, and yet … ” He went back to his pie, swallowing a bite before continuing. “And yet I found myself deciding that if you took his hand, I would find a way to live with it. It would be your choice.”
I sipped from my wine. “And if he had grabbed me?”
There was nothing but uncompromising will in his eyes. “Then I would have torn apart the world to get you back.”

“But then she snapped your neck.”
Tears rolled down his face.
“And I felt you die,” he whispered.
Tears were sliding down my own cheeks.”

“I was his and he was mine, and we were the beginning and middle and end. We were a song that had been sung from the very first ember of light in the world.”

“He locked you up because he knew—the bastard knew what a treasure you are. That you are worth more than land or gold or jewels. He knew, and wanted to keep you all to himself.”

“I’m thinking,” he said, following the flick of my tongue over my bottom lip, “that I look at you and feel like I’m dying. Like I can’t breathe. I’m thinking that I want you so badly I can’t concentrate half the time I’m around you, and this room is too small for me to properly bed you. Especially with the wings.”

“I was not prey any longer, I decided as I eased up to that door.
And I was not a mouse.
I was a wolf.”

“Truth is deadly. Truth is freedom. Truth can break and mend and bind.”

“Did you enjoy the sight of me kneeling before you?”

“She’s mine. And if any of you lay a hand on her, you lose that hand. And then lose your head. And once Feyre is done killing you, then I’ll grind your bones to dust.”

“But I couldn’t … I couldn’t stop being around you, and loving you, and wanting you. I still can’t stay away.”

“You might be my mate, he said, but you remain your own person. You decide your fate – your choices. Not me. You chose yesterday. You choose every day. Forever.”

“When Rhys came back, after Amarantha, he was a ghost. He pretended he wasn’t, but he was. You made him come alive again.”

“Lucien had been prepared to take me against my will.
Fae males were territorial, dominant, arrogant—but the ones in the Spring Court … something had festered in their training. Because I knew—deep in my bones—that Cassian might push and test my limits, but the moment I said no, he’d back off. And I knew that if … that if I had been wasting away and Rhys had done nothing to stop it, Cassian or Azriel would have pulled me out. They would have taken me somewhere—wherever I needed to be—and dealt with Rhys later.
But Rhys … Rhys would never have not seen what was happening to me; would never have been so misguided and arrogant and self-absorbed. He’d known what Ianthe was from the moment he met her. And he’d understood what it was like to be a prisoner, and helpless, and to struggle—every day—with the horrors of both.”

“You can be a pawn, be someone’s reward, and spend the rest of your immortal life bowing and scraping and pretending you’re less than him, than Ianthe, than any of us. If you want to pick that road, then fine. A shame, but it’s your choice.” The shadow of wings rippled again. “But I know you—more than you realize, I think—and I don’t believe for one damn minute that you’re remotely fine with being a pretty trophy for someone who sat on his ass for nearly fifty years, then sat on his ass while you were shredded apart—”

“You can master whatever powers we gave to you, and make it count. You can play a role in this war. Because war is coming one way or another, and do not try to delude yourself that any of the Fae will give a shit about your family across the wall when our whole territory is likely to become a charnel house.”

“It had filled my time – given me quiet, steadfast company with those characters, who did not exist and never would, but somehow made me feel less … alone.”

I’m thinking that I was a lonely, hopeless person, and I might have fallen in love with the first thing that showed me a hint of kindness and safety. And I’m thinking maybe he knew that – maybe not actively, but maybe he wanted to be that person for someone. And maybe that worked for who I was before. Maybe it doesn’t work for who – what I am now.”

“I heard you begging someone, anyone, to rescue you, to get you out. I heard you say no.”

“I once lived in a place where the opinion of others mattered. It suffocated me, nearly broke me. So you’ll understand me, Feyre, when I say that I know what you feel, and I know what they tried to do to you, and that with enough courage, you can say to hell with a reputation. You do what you love, what you need”

“Was I interrupting? I thought it was over.” Rhys gave me a smile dripping with venom. He knew-through that bond, through whatever magic was between us, he’d known I was about to say no. “At least Feyre seemed to think so.”

“Azriel would likely love Mor until he was a whisper of darkness between the stars.”

“You think I don’t know how stories get written- how this story will be written?” Rhys put his hands on his chest, his face more open, more anguished than I’d seen it. “I am the dark lord, who stole away the bride of spring. I am a demon, and a nightmare, and I will meet a bad end. He is the golden prince- the hero who will get to keep you as his reward for not dying of stupidity and arrogance.”

“Where are we going?” Rhy’s smile widened into a grin. “To Velaris—the City of Starlight.”

“The voice was at once the night and the dawn and the stars and the earth, and every inch of my body calmed at the primal dominance in it.”

“A queen who owned her body, her life, her destiny, and never apologized for it.”

“I hope they all burn in hell.”

 “As long as the people who matter most know the truth, I don’t care about the rest.”

“Why should I bother defending myself,” Nesta said with lethal cold, “to a male who is so puffed up on his own sense of importance there’s barely enough space in the room for his enormous head?”

“I’d endure every second of it over again so I could find you.”

“You look absolutely delicious today, Feyre?!”

“If he didn’t walk away when I voiced what I wanted: him.
Not the High Lord, not the most powerful male in Pyrthian’s history. Just….him. The person who had sent music into that cell; who had picked up that knife in Amarantha’s throne room to fight for me when no one else dared, and who had kept fighting for me every day since, refusing to let me crumble and disappear into nothing.”

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When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a terrifying creature arrives to demand retribution. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she knows about only from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor is not truly a beast, but one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled her world.

At least, he’s not a beast all the time.

As she adapts to her new home, her feelings for the faerie, Tamlin, transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie she’s been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae. But something is not right in the faerie lands. An ancient, wicked shadow is growing, and Feyre must find a way to stop it, or doom Tamlin – and his world – forever.