Title: The Faerie Hounds of York
Author: Arden Powell
Genre: Adult Fantasy
Format: eARC
Length: 145 pages
Publisher: Amazon.com Services, LLC
Release Date: August 20, 2020
Setting: England (London & Yorkshire)
ARC Provider: Booksprout

Faerie mischief, violence, faerie kidnapping

Queer (Gay and/or m/m love)

Disclaimer: I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you to Booksprout and Amazon.com Services, LLC for this free copy.

I want to give a huge thank you to Rogier @ Roro is Reading for pointing me in the direction of this novel on Twitter, and allowing me give it a chance for Arden Powell. I don’t think I would have found this novel without Rogier’s help, so thank you so much for putting it on my radar!

Stories on fae have been pretty popular lately, although I say that they were more popular in the Young Adult age range. It was so refreshing to see an adult fantasy novel that deals with fae that weren’t as well known to me, or those that I don’t really get to see much of in literature. In addition, I liked that we got to follow two male characters during this story, as we usually are following the tale of a young woman. Nothing wrong with stories on women – as I definitely adore female MCs no matter what genre or age range – but getting to be in the mind of a man dealing with the aftermath of a faerie curse was exciting.

This novel starts off with William Loxley waking up in the middle of a faerie circle, in the middle of the Moors in Yorkshire, England. He also suffered some memory loss, as he doesn’t know how he got to Yorkshire or why, nor does he know how he got stuck in the circle. Lucky for him, a handsome stranger Mr. Thorncress somehow stumbled upon him, and was able to get him out of the circle. Maybe that was perfect timing, maybe it wasn’t, but the fact of the matter is that it happened, and the story only moves forward from there.

Other reviewers have mentioned how eerie and creepy this novel – or novella since it was under 200 pages – was when they read it, and I have to agree with their sentiments. Every time I tried to read this at night, I would have to stop because I felt like there was someone or something watching me in the dark corner of my bedroom, kind of like how someone was watching Loxley in the same manner. It freaked me out in the best way, and I made a note to myself to never read this at night ever again.

This novel was just very refreshing and unique in a way that I was so glad to see this year. There are so many times where I will start to get into a fantasy slump and it takes books like this to get me out of it again. I’m a huge fantasy lover, and I don’t see myself ever getting out of this genre forever, but getting to see the perfect blend of fantasy and romance is just absolutely wonderful. I didn’t touch much on the romance between Loxley and Mr. Thorncress but I felt it to be one of my favorite relationships so far. I liked the build up and it wasn’t “insta-love” although I don’t personally see anything wrong with that when done right. I just really liked how this progressed from the beginning to the end, and I felt like Arden really did this story justice.