The Falconer, by Elizabeth May | Book Review #156

“One girl’s nightmare is this girl’s faery tale

She’s a stunner.
Edinburgh, 1844. Eighteen-year-old Lady Aileana Kameron, the only daughter of the Marquess of Douglas, has everything a girl could dream of: brains, charm, wealth, a title—and drop-dead beauty.

She’s a liar.
But Aileana only looks the part of an aristocratic young lady. she’s leading a double life: She has a rare ability to sense the sìthíchean—the faery race obsessed with slaughtering humans—and, with the aid of a mysterious mentor, has spent the year since her mother died learning how to kill them.

She’s a murderer.
Now Aileana is dedicated to slaying the fae before they take innocent lives. With her knack for inventing ingenious tools and weapons—from flying machines to detonators to lightning pistols—ruthless Aileana has one goal: Destroy the faery who destroyed her mother.

She’s a Falconer.
The last in a line of female warriors born with a gift for hunting and killing the fae, Aileana is the sole hope of preventing a powerful faery population from massacring all of humanity. Suddenly, her quest is a lot more complicated. She still longs to avenge her mother’s murder—but she’ll have to save the world first.”

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What I thought The Falconer was prior to actually sitting down and reading this book, is that The Falconer would have a badass Scottish lady as its main character. And in part The Falconer does have a badass Scottish lady as it’s main character. Upon reading the book, I found that people were holding out on me!

As you may or may not know, I don’t particularly enjoy Historical Fiction. However, when there’s a Fantasy element involved in the book, more often than not I’ll become interested. To me, The Falconer has the best of both worlds: those old dresses that people seem to love, and these fantasy elements that I never expected to have.

I love the fact that right when you start reading the book, the character practically admits to us, the reader, that she has this secret identity that she hasn’t even told her best friend about. Aileanna; the main character, is a character who in my opinion is one of the characters who would be unexpectedly whoosh you off of your feet. Aileanna is smart, and sneaky. Two very good attributes to a character who lives in the year of 1844! Aileanna, if she were to be alive today, is one of those people who would gladly put people in their place(s). Don’t get Aileanna mad! Oh no! You don’t want to know what she knows about you!

I was actually surprised at a few things because I had predicted them while reading the book, and they didn’t come true at all! I was partially true, but for the most part, I couldn’t get The Falconer under wraps in my head. Almost everywhere there was a new development or a new tidbit of information.

For the most part, I really loved this book. I loved the action, the forbidden love that the main character and another character had. And I also loved the practically that a lot of these characters had. Overall, The Falconer was a very enjoyable book for me to read. However, there were a few things that bothered me.

The first thing that bothered me about The Falconer is that the book ends in the middle of a scene!! And this actually makes me really glad that I didn’t find out about this book until the next book, The Vanishing Throne, was almost published.

The fact that the ending scene is over and done with so quickly — in reality, it’d have been at most, 5 minutes worth of action (if it were real life). This scene was read so incredibly quickly. I won’t lie… I don’t like the fact that The Falconer ended so abruptly. I just hope that The Vanishing Throne is the FINAL LAST BOOK?!

I certainly thought going into reading this book a while back that The Falconer would be a stand alone. It isn’t though, and now that I’ve read the book, I’ve got to say that I’m okay with there being a second book. If there weren’t a second book to The Falconer, I’d think that a lot of the people who’ve read this book would be mad about there not being a second book.

The ending is so ominous as well. Like, does this actually mean that the second book is going to be darker in content? I certainly hope so! Aileanna going dark would be pretty interesting!

That’s all for now! Thank you so much for reading my review of The Falconer by Elizabeth May.

Happy Reading!
Adele