The Falconer

First thing, I love the Edinburgh, Scotland setting. May has reproduced the historical parts of Old Town/New Town Edinburgh such that any visitor to the city will recognize the location. May has also given it a wonderful fantasy/steampunk appearance with the introduction of a faery race (pulled pretty much from Scottish fae lore) and introduced enough steampunk/mechanical elements to satisfy the steampunk junkie in me. The fact that Aileana loves to tinker with mechanics and makes her own weapons/airship is also a nice nod towards women as engineers/builders of devices. the world build may not be quite as inventive as the alternate reality of Westerfeld's Leviathan series, IMO, but still well-crafted. I find the pixie Derrick to be a show more great character. He brings charm and levity to this action-packed story and is a nice counter to Kiaran, the warrior faerie training Aileana. For me, this comes across as a wonderful transition read between the Westerfeld's Leviathan series and Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate series. Aileana is 18 years old (not the younger teen of Westerfeld's story) and the story comes across as a more PG/less bawdy paranormal in comparison with the Carriger books. Great never-ending action, good characters and a wonderful setting. Only downside for me is what I tend to find in a number of debut novels - which this happens to be - in that the story does to much "showing". We are continually informed of what Aileana is feeling and it can get a bit repetitive from that perspective but that is really my only quibble with this one, that and the fact that the ending is, of course, perfectly written as a set up for the next book in the trilogy.

Good stuff! show less

The Falconer started off strong: steampunk fantasy setting involving evil faeries and drawing room etiquette all at once, with a strong dash of costume porn and some excellent violence. I mean, seriously, I usually loathe violence in my books and cringe away from it even when it's relevant to the plot, but the visceral descriptions in the opening pages of The Falconer suited me perfectly this week (it's been a stressful week for me) and I found myself really getting into the deserved (if misplaced) vengeance the heroine commits.

The book fails for me in three ways:
1) there is a wholly unnecessary love story. Completely unnecessary and also kind of disturbing. From the outset, the love interest is depicted as unsuitable and a bad idea, show more but as the pagecount increases, sexy-linked words and descriptions about him grow, until suddenly at the end it's actual love somehow?? and i just can't see it. Also, the plot would be so much better without this romance thread.

2) the love interest is threatened with murder at several points, but the heroine never follows through. :( I was rooting for her the entire time! he's set up as her mentor (of sorts) but not trustworthy and also cruel, and I was certain that he was secretly a villain and needed to be murdered. Turns out he's not exactly a villain, but he still needed murdering and the heroine never quite succeeds at it, and that is incredibly disappointing.

3) the climatic battle between our heroine and the faeries is a let down. There's hardly any good description of the killing like in the early parts of the book, it's all sort of elided in favor of more sexy descriptions of the love interest and sad farewells and "you must leave me for the good of the world" (blech barf gross). PLUS I know it was explained earlier why there had to be this battle but it never really made sense for me, that she had to fight a bunch of evil faeries before she can trap them again. Why not be positioned near the trapdoor to lock it up before the faeries escape instead of letting them escape and having to cut her way through to get to the door?

There are two other things that bug me but aren't failures:
A) so much denigration of the drawing room etiquette stuff. I feel like the heroine didn't have to be completely negative about social status, even if she is grieving and secretly a valkyrie or whatever.

B) there are no actual falcons in the book, so the whole "the Falconer" thing was a bit of a letdown. Admittedly, i didn't read the book synopsis or anything before reading it. I don't know why I put it on my library hold list anymore, it just came in so I got it off the shelf and started reading.

So anyway, in summary, The Falconer is pretty engaging and fun to read except I wanted the heroine to murder the love interest in cold blood the entire time. Also the ending sucked but there's a sequel! Maybe she'll murder him in the sequel. show less

Lady Aileana Kameron isn't your usual debutante. She not only can see the fae, but she is also a Falconer or someone who is equipped to kill them. She has been training with Kiaran, a mysterious and beautiful fae, who, surprisingly, wants to destroy his kind and holds many secrets. Also, a pixie, Derrick, protects her and helps her recover from her injuries. This is more than just killing fae to Aileana though. Her mother was killed by one and in turn, it has become personal. Her father, even though he doesn't know Aileana's secrets, would rather she was more conventional and spend her time taking up more leisurely pursuits, such as finding a husband; however, she wants more for herself. Elizabeth May's debut, The Falconer, is a slow to show more start novel, but once the action picked up, I was hooked.

Aileana is a fun heroine in The Falconer. She's feisty, unconventional, and is downright tough. Unlike the other girls, she can hold her own and even invents various types of weaponry to fight the fae. Aileana is a little hyper focused on destroying the fae since the violent death of her mother, but overall, I enjoyed her.

What initially set me off when reading The Falconer was the time period. I thought it was set in 19th century Scotland with a fantasy twist (fae) and it is, but it's a little bit different than I expected. It's a steampunk world with steampunk technology, etc. Also, I was a little disappointed that there wasn't much focus on the Scottish world, but more on Scottish lore. Thank God for the glossary (Aileana's Beastiary) at the end of the novel which lists the various types of fae. I found myself referring to this quite a bit.

In The Falconer, readers are introduced to Gavin, Aileana's childhood friend. Aileana used to have a childhood crush on him and since his return from school, she realizes that he is hiding many secrets. Also, readers get to know the elusive and extremely good looking fae, Kiaran, a bit more and some of his motives, such as the important question of why would he help kill fae if he is fae? Lastly, my favorite character in The Falconer is the pixie, Derrick. He's hilarious, fun and some of his one-liners made me laugh out loud.

Despite my initial hesitance towards The Falconer, the plot really starts to pick up by the middle of the novel. Plus, once the fae realize all that Aileana is capable of, the action picks up tremendously and war is looming over their heads.

Of course The Falconer ends with a crazy cliffhanger (as any good trilogy should) and despite a few of my issues with the novel, I will definitely be picking up the next book in the series, which is due out next year. show less

Dudes. DUUUUUUDES. Stop what you are doing. Put down what you are reading (except for this review). Put everything on hold and read The Falconer. I don’t care what you’ve heard, and I don’t care what hangups you think you might have. In fact, I think I can answer every concern you might have. Look!

1. Ugh, but it’s steampunk. I don’t like steampunk.

Okay, you’re a crazy person, and crazy isn’t something I can fix. Steampunk is awesome. But I guess you’re allowed your tastes, so whatever. Even still, I think The Falconer‘s version of steampunk is palatable for just about everyone. First of all, it’s a steampunk set in Scotland. SCOTLAND! Not once do we step foot in London or even England proper. They don’t even like show more the British up there. Even better, the steampunk Elizabeth May employs is so delightfully restrained. To quote my pal Gillian Berry, it’s a “subtle steampunk that just serves to boost the world, not define it.”

Aileana’s world has delightful contraptions like stitcher spiders and ornithopters and flying carriages, all of which set my heart a-fluttering, but Ms. May does a great job of keeping the steampunk elements from overwhelming the story. The inventions are used to bolster the plot and make the world-building shine, but the story would remain both feasible and intelligible without them. The reader gets all of the balls and pretty gowns and social constraints that we’ve come to expect from books of this time period, just with some fantastic mechanical baubles thrown in.

2. There are fairies. I don’t do fairies.

Faeries. They’re faeries, not fairies. My gosh. But you know what? I can’t STAND faeries/fairies/fae/whatever. Every book I’ve ever tried with those odd beasties were complete duds for me. Really, the faeries were my biggest hangup prior to starting The Falconer. But then I read this book, and now I’m a believer. Ms. May manages to squeeze in each type of faerie typically found in YA lit (scary, sexy, funny) and make it work. We get everything from the generally harmless pixies to the seductive and dangerous daoine sith and everything in between—fae that fly, howl, bark, and charm their way through piles of dead Scots.

Interestingly, though each type of faerie also has a nearly incomprehensible Scottish name for itself, I didn’t have trouble keeping the types separated. Each kind was on the page long enough and the titles used consistently enough that I was able to tell a sluag apart from a baobhan sith, for example. Which is great, because then I didn’t miss out on the rest of faerie lore. There’s more to enjoy concerning men with the Sight and women Falconers and bloodlines and herbs and fighting techniques. As with the faerie types, I was able to follow along easily, which I appreciated.

3 . There’s a fighter girl. I’m so over fighter girls.

I get that. Fighter girls can be fun, but there are so many of them that the standard, kick-butt version does less and less for me each time. That being said, Aileana is a variation that I completely enjoyed. First of all, she’s wicked smart. Even before her mother’s death, Aileana was an avid tinkerer. She built her family’s ornithopter and was always inventing some new gadget. After her mother’s death, however, she dismantled all her fobs and fripperies and started converting them into weapons to hunt the faeries.

She’s also remarkably unapologetic about her thirst for vengeance. Since her mother’s death a year prior, this young noblewoman has murdered 158 faeries. She has gone from a wide-eyed, innocent young thing with a head full of love and marriage to a seasoned liar and hunter with a thirst for blood. Indeed, she’s become addicted to the rush of power and untainted joy she gets with each kill. Watching her struggle in an attempt to reconcile the girl that she was with what she has become is both an interesting read and a heartbreaking one. In the end, these two traits—Aileana’s brains and her drive—are what make her strong, not her ability to kill.

4. There’s a love triangle. I HAAAAAATE love triangles.

No! No love triangle! Not really. What Ms. May does here is tricky, because it sort of looks like Aileana is being prepped for a whopper of a love triangle (or even a love trident), but it never comes to pass. There are actually three wonderful boys in The Falconer, and each deserves a mention, because they’re just that wonderful.

First, there’s Derrick. Derrick is a pixie, a tiny Tinker Bell-sized faerie that lives in Aileana’s dressing room and mends her clothes in exchange for honey (too much of which makes him hilariously drunk). Of the three boys, he’s mostly played for comic relief, but he’s also a true and loyal friend to Aileana, which is pretty incredible considering her vow to kill as many faeries as she can find. All of the best quotes come from Derrick, and I would dearly like to have one of my own. (Except for one comment about an old love of his, Derrick fits the standard trope of Loyal Gay Friend pretty well.)

Next, there’s Gavin. Gavin is a human and the elder brother of Aileana’s best friend. He represents Aileana’s past and the hopes and dreams she’s set aside in exchange for revenge. If this were Shadow and Bone, he’d be Mal; if Unhinged, he’d be Jeb. I can’t say too much more about Gavin, but I truly enjoyed him and the role he filled.

Lastly, there’s Kiaran, or as Gillian and I like to call him, “KIAAAAARAAAAAAAAAN.” What a dreamboat. He’s the bad-boy side of this supposed love triangle. If Gavin is Aileana’s pure and innocent past, Kiaran is her dark and dangerous future. Kiaran is one of the most powerful types of faerie, a daoine sith, and hunts down his own kind for reasons of his own. Nowhere is Kiaran framed as the safe choice or even necessarily the best choice. However, he offers what Gavin cannot. He sees Aileana’s rage and thirst for revenge and accepts them in a way that Gavin simply can’t. In this equation, Kiaran is the best parts of the Darkling, Warner, Jack Dandy, and Morpheus, Aileana’s guide as she does what must be done.

Despite how it appears, I must stress again that this book does not contain an actual love triangle. The storyline may trend that way in later books, but it does not do so now. Even if it did, I still think readers will enjoy this book. Each boy plays his part (Loyal Friend, Good Boy, Bad Boy), but each part contains pleasant deviations from the standard form. You might think you know how each boy will react—who will be jealous of whom and how, who will attempt to control Aileana, etc.—but you can’t. Aileana is not the one to change Kiaran’s black heart. Gavin isn’t constantly playing the white knight and saving her from danger. Aileana doesn’t whine, wheedle, or manipulate the boys to do what she wants. It’s wonderful!

5. The ending. I’ve heard other people didn’t like how abrupt it was.

I’ll give you this one. The ending was rather abrupt. I liked it, because it left me with a jolt of character development that I wasn’t expecting, but it definitely killed me in the “Oh my gosh, give me the next book NOW” sort of way. What can ya do?

I strongly encourage you all to read this book. If I may quote my own Goodreads status, this book is like popcorn. Delicious, adrenaline-laced, pixie dust-flavored popcorn. It’s ridiculously addictive in the best way. The moment I have money to spend, it will go toward obtaining this book, and from me, there’s no higher praise.

Favorite Non-Spoilery Quotes:

“You know my mother thinks the waltz is indecent.”

“Your mother would find the sight of a chair leg indecent.”

When Dante described the circles of Hell, he clearly forgot the one where a hungry pixie sits on one’s shoulder for eternity.

“My ears are bleeding. I have a nasty headache. I’m trapped in a room with a murderous faery and I blame you.”

“That’s fair.”

“Perhaps it’s a honey-ache. That’s the result of eating too much of what isn’t yours.”

“But your friend offered it. So she might not have explicitly said, ‘Derrick, please eat all of the honey in my kitchen,’ but it was implied by the mere fact that she has a kitchen.”

“Well, I can safely say that I’ve never experienced a more exciting two days. I suppose I should send a note before seeing you again. ‘Are you in the company of any creature liable to attack me unprovoked? I can visit later.’”

Points Added For: Aileana, Derrick, Kiaran, Gavin; a fresh, less stereotypical twist on character tropes; Aileana’s inventive streak; subtle steampunkery; a great mix of humor, tension, and sexiness.

Points Subtracted For: A really abrupt ending, I guess.

Good For Fans Of: Faeries, bad boys, good boys, funny and supportive boys, girls who kick butt, smart girls, historical Scotland, light steampunk.

Notes For Parents: Language (I think), making out, death. show less

"I'm like him. I'm a monster, too.”

Part steampunk, part fantasy, this was a fun, easy, fascinating read. I enjoyed the subtle switches in the world for steampunk but also the Fae. Learning the ins and outs of those baddies was fascinating as well.

Aileana is struggling - she's supposed to be a genteel girl looking for a husband. She's 18 with a fabulous dowry. But not too long ago, her mother was murdered and she was found covered in blood and holding her mother in her arms.

But that day didn't just change Aileana's world because she lost her mom (and had to shoulder the scandal of everyone thinking she might be a murder) but she also started seeing the Fae - creatures that inhabit her world, killing humans at will. Luckily, the Fae show more are few in numbers and Aileana quickly aims to learn their weaknesses and strengths.

The story picks up from there and is easy to fall right in to. Kiaran was a nice distraction and I enjoyed his piece in the story. And even Gavin and Catherine kept the story well paced and the information interesting. I loved Derrick and think he might be my favorite character. Bring that little guy some more honey!

I will definitely be reading the rest of this series. show less

Part steampunk, part historical fiction, part urban fantasy, I suppose you could say there's something for everyone in THE FALCONER by Elizabeth May. Especially when you add in all the action and the killing. Because that's what Aileana Kameron does -- she kills faeries.

It wasn't always that way. At one point she was a fairly typical girl, living with her well-to-do parents in Edinburgh in the 1840s. Typical, if you don't count the inventions she was always working on with her mother. Or the fact that her relationship with her father left a lot to be desired. But her life then has little in common with her life since the violent death of her mother at the hands of what she's since come to realize was a faery.

Having since met up with show more Kiaran McKay -- one of the most dangerous faeries in Scotland -- Aileana has spent most of her time training to seek revenge and hiding her true nature from her closest friends. She doesn't know why a faery like Kiaran would agree to help her, to teach her everything he knows about his secret world, but she doesn't really care. As long as she gets to kill.

But it's more dangerous now than ever, with what could very well turn out to be an apocalypse on the horizon. And Aileana's secrets are coming unravelled. Her reputation is at risk, but, with so much more at stake than her social life, she's going to need all the help she can get.

With a colorful cast of socialites, faeries, and one lovely honey-addicted pixie, THE FALCONER is a not-to-be-missed title this summer. Fans of Holly Black will love it for its faery mythology, and Hunger Games aficionados will dig the kick-ass heroine. I'm so looking forward to the next books in the series! show less

I was having fun with this book from the very first page, in part because I was excited about doing an informal read-along with Anya from On Starships and Dragonwings, but also because the world building was so well done. The author did a great job describing what was currently happening in a way that hinted at the big picture. The constant action and intriguing hints of more world building to come kept me quickly turning pages through the whole book. Especially cool elements of the world building included the Scottish mythology, the awesome steampunk inventions, and the somewhat unusual choice to have the fairies be the bad guys.

The characters were another part of this book I enjoyed. Aileana is a somewhat complex character, trying to show more balance her social obligations and her desire for revenge. She loves inventing weapons and gets a thrill from hunting fairies which makes her question her own morality. The secondary characters were also interesting and well developed. I particularly liked seeing the friendships Aileana had, since I feel friendship is an overlooked relationship in many books. At the same time, romance is often overdone for my taste. That meant that I was very happy to see hints of a love triangle fizzle out and to see the romance in general take a back seat to the adventure. There were a few instances where I thought the heroine was being stupid about boys and the ending was such a cliff-hanger I felt like the author just stopped writing, but other than those two small gripes, I loved everything about this book. Perfect for fans of Gail Carriger and for anyone looking for a fun adventure with a great setting and not too much romance.

This review first published on Doing Dewey. show less