Review of The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

Advance Review of Holly Black's The Darkest Part of the Forest

Release Date: January 13th, 2015

Synopsis as found on GoodReads.com:

Children can have a cruel, absolute sense of justice. Children can kill a monster and feel quite proud of themselves. A girl can look at her brother and believe they’re destined to be a knight and a bard who battle evil. She can believe she’s found the thing she’s been made for.

Hazel lives with her brother, Ben, in the strange town of Fairfold where humans and fae exist side by side. The faeries’ seemingly harmless magic attracts tourists, but Hazel knows how dangerous they can be, and she knows how to stop them. Or she did, once.

At the center of it all, there is a glass coffin in the woods. It rests right on the ground and in it sleeps a boy with horns on his head and ears as pointed as knives. Hazel and Ben were both in love with him as children. The boy has slept there for generations, never waking.

Until one day, he does…

As the world turns upside down, Hazel tries to remember her years pretending to be a knight. But swept up in new love, shifting loyalties, and the fresh sting of betrayal, will it be enough?

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There is a kind of satisfaction you get when you read a good book, like you're a surfer riding the perfect wave... a relief for a happy ending. I am a huge fan of Holly Black's work, well what I have read of it. I have read The Coldest Girl in Cold Town & The Curse Workers series, but have not taken the time to acquaint myself with any of her books about Faeries, but I will have to take the time to read them. I am happy to say that this book will be another hit for her.

Hazel & Ben are siblings who have grown up in a town on the edge of legends & lore, Fairfold... where the lore of "The Folk" are not legends at all, they are the towns people's reality. There is a boy in a glass coffin in the woods that everyone likes to visit, but no one as much as Ben & Hazel. They make up stories about why he is stuck in the coffin... why he has horns growing from his head.

When townsfolk start turning up in a coma with dirt & moss growing from their mouths & the horned boy comes up missing, the coffin previously unbreakable suddenly smashed, Hazel & Ben take it upon themselves to find out what is really happening. Surrounded by a fantastical Faerieland, these two siblings will have to quickly solve the mystery of the horned boy & save their town from utter destruction.