Review of Stolen Away by Alyxandra Harvey

Title/Author: Stolen Away by Alyxandra Harvey
Publisher/Date published: Walker Books For Young Readers, January 17th 2012
How I got this book: received it from the publisher through NetGalley

Goodreads summary: "For seventeen years, Eloise Hart had no idea the world of Faery even existed. Now she has been abducted and trapped in the Rath of Lord Strahan, King of Faery. Strahan was only meant to rule for seven years, as Faery tradition dictates, and then give up his crown to another. But he won't comply, and now chaos threatens both worlds.
The only one who can break his stranglehold on the Faery court is his wife... Eloise's aunt Antonia. Using Eloise to lure Antonia, Strahan captures his wife, desperate to end the only threat to his reign. Now Eloise must become the rescuer. Together with her best friends Jo and Devin, she must forge alliances with other Fae, including a gorgeous protector named Lucas, and Strahan's mysterious son, Eldric - who may or may not betray them."

I haven't had the best experiences with books about the fae in the past. I'm probably one of the only ones who didn't enjoy Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr (yes, I know). But when I saw the summary of this book, I thought it sounded incredibly interesting and definitely like something I would enjoy, so I decided to read it and just see what would happen.

And I did like the story itself! The concept was really interesting and the whole intrigue and all the politics are amazing. BUT. (Sadly, there's a 'but')

While I did like the storyline as in the overall concept of Stolen Away, the execution didn't really work for me. It felt rushed and even though it switched POV between the two main characters Jo and Eloise, I never felt like we got to know them beyond some basic character traits. Also: there's some serious insta-love going on and that's just not my thing.

I LOVED the idea of paranormal creatures appearing a certain way because humans thought they should look like that and it actually altering their appearance. SO GOOD! I also really liked the whole complicated mess that is Eldric surrounding the capture of Eloise. And I liked Lucas, but he's the good guys, so that's basically a given ;)

There were however a lot of things that felt to me like they were only half explained in the rush to get to the end and I would have liked a little more backstory. Stolen Away was an ok read for me, but I think that it could have been so much more!

My rating: 2 stars