The Sacrifice: The First Book of the Fey

the only bad part is , the book is older and i can't find much about the series. so it might be hard to find the rest of the books. so warning. the book starts slow and i mean slow, i stoped reading it for a week at the first page. silly me. from then i considered stopping again before the next few more. then all at once the book becomes fasinating. a very good quality read. i am reading the last few pages now of this first book and i cant wait to read the rest. from what i see in the reviews i will not be disapointed. lets just hope i can find the books =)

Originally, I had picked up the second book of the series by chance. I read the first few chapters and fell in love with the book. It was soem time later when I was browsing for a new reading book at the library and I reconized the title. My consensus is that the first book of the series is as great as any other. The characters are well developed and their personalities are mulit-faceted. Kristine Kathryn Rusch shows her ample capability of writing when she wrote the storyline. For most of the book she holds you in suspense and keeps you guessing at what will happen to the mysterious race known as the Fey. Even though the book skips around from person to person, most of the attention is centered on the Islander prince Nicholas and the Fey princess Jewel, yet Kritine doesn't leave her other characters underdevealoped. Overall, this was an excellent book with lots of plot twists, suspense, and imagination and it's only downfall is that the book starts off slow.

The rating of five stars is really for the series as a whole, not just the first book. I read the second book first, and the first book last, and I can see why some people don't like the first one, but by the end they are SOOO good, it doesn't matter! Persistance is the key! Arianna, Gift and Coulter are great characters, and I can't wait for the second series...

When I first saw the title "The Fey" in the book store I thought, naw, I've read this story a thousand times. But Rusch acutally manages to make the rather standard plot into an amazing and original read. This king's daughter/warrior in battle proving her worth story certainly has some cliche elements, but they only give the reader a foothold for Rusch's magic in creating the brilliantly complex characters on both sides of the conflict. I never could decide which side I wanted to win, and never did decide even as it ended. Instead of the standard "some good, some bad people" set up for each side, Rusch puts the "some good, some bad" in each of her characters in a very believable way. Read this book if you're planning on writing some great, complex characters!

It amazes me each time I read a review of Rusch you either hate her work or love it. I am one of those who cannot say enough good things about this series and this book. The book is niether wildly fantastical or whimiscal. Rather it is based on Olde English concepts of magical folk. Rather than having mages that have all the power these magical creatures are limited in their abilities to one kind of magic, changeling or prophesizing to name two. I know it is worth the read and I cannot wait for the next in the series!