The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door by H.G. Parry. Review

Synopsis

From the author of The Magician’s Daughter comes The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door, a mythic, magical tale full of secret scholarship, faerie curses, and the deadliest spells of all—the ones that friends cast on each other.

All they needed to break the world was a door, and someone to open it.

Camford, 1920. Gilded and glittering, England’s secret magical academy is no place for Clover, a commoner with neither connections nor magical blood. She tells herself she has fought her way there only to find a cure for her brother Matthew, one of the few survivors of a faerie attack on the battlefields of WWI which left the doors to faerie country sealed, the study of its magic banned, and its victims cursed.

But when Clover catches the eye of golden boy Alden Lennox-Fontaine and his friends, doors that were previously closed to her are flung wide open, and she soon finds herself enmeshed in the seductive world of the country’s magical aristocrats. The summer she spends in Alden’s orbit leaves a fateful mark: months of joyous friendship and mutual study come crashing down when experiments go awry, and old secrets are unearthed.

Years later, when the faerie seals break, Clover knows it’s because of what they did. And she knows that she must seek the help of people she once called friends—and now doesn’t quite know what to call—if there’s any hope of saving the world as they know it.

Review

5 stars

I didn’t expect to love that book as much as I did! Nor to be awed by its writing!

HG Parry threw me in a world post WWI made of magic universities, aristocracy, faerie magic and I emerged only once my read finished with wonder in the heart and a bittersweet aftertaste.

Everything revolves around Clover, farmer’s daughter whose plan has always been to escape the farm. When her brother comes back from WWI cursed by a faery, she is shocked to learn that magic is real and taught in a select university. Determined to cure her brother, she will herself to master enough magic to have a commoner like her attend select Camford university.

Alone and disregarded, she loses herself in her studies until golden boy Alden Lennox-Fontaine takes an interest in her and her studies and introduces Clover to his closest friends Hero and Eddie.

What will follow is a golden summer. A moment suspended in time, made to build a lifetime friendship and collaborate on a daring quest: open a faerie door while trapping the faerie. But all ends in drama tearing them all apart.

Years later, when the aftermath of their summer threatens the world, Clover knows it’s up to her to set things right, even at the cost of all she has worked for.

Read this book if you love:

-excellent writing;

-intense friendship stories with their ups and downs.

-found family story;

-magic academia;

-the underdog rising above her station;

-complicated human relationships;

-flawed heroes who will make mistakes but will seek to make amends;

That story was a wonder and reading it was like being in a haze, obsessed by faerie quest. It was enthralling, beautiful, magical and bittersweet.

HG Parry has won a new fan and I plan on reading her other books soon!