Valiant A Modern Faerie Tale

In this second installment of the Modern Faerietales, we follow the human girl Val into the world of the solitary fey in New York that we got to see a little bit already in Tithe. Val meets a group of human kids that live in the underground and carry out deliveries for a troll named Ravus. She soon learns that a lot of the faeries who have recieved potions from Ravus have died shortly after - and most fey are convinced that it is Ravus's doing. Val, having gotten to know Ravus a bit, is sure that he has nothing to do with the deaths, and starts investigating to prove Ravus's innocence. As usual with Holly Black, her fey are wonderfully dark and twisted, and her world really draws you in immediately and makes you wonder if fey may actually exist after all. Different to her other works though, this book didn't quite convince me just as much. Val didn't really grow on me as a character, as much as i tried to love her the way i do Jude and Kaye, she felt somewhat flat to me, and Ravus lacks some of the spice her usual love interests have, too. It very much felt like she needed a story in between to set up Ironside, and the only chapter that had her usual feel to it was the one that some characters from Tithe finally show up in. Despite that, there are very intriguing characters like Luis and Dave, who we sadly only spend very little time with. All in all it was a cute little book for in between, but by far not Holly Black's best work.