Heart of the Fae by Emma Hamm is a Beauty and the Beast retelling with heavy, heavy inspiration from old Celtic mythology. Now, I can’t remember exactly how I heard about this book, but it was on my Amazon wishlist for a while and I stumbled across it again.

I love books about faeries. I love books about healers. I love fairytale retellings. This is all three, and it is wonderful. The main character, Sorcha, is a midwife who lives in a brothel (side note: this book is sex work positive. How rare is that? Definite plus for me!) Her home, Uí Néill, is being plagued with horrible parasites, and her adoptive father falls prey to them. When begging for help from a mostly-forgotten goddess, Sorcha is sent on a journey that takes her to an island of exiled fae where a banished king, Eamonn, hides in an ancient castle.

The writing is wonderful. Hamm is witty, descriptive, and thrilling in her style. Nothing moves too fast or too slow, and we get gorgeous descriptions of the fae lands and the aforementioned fae king. It’s full of banter between Sorcha and the fae, and I will always be a lover of banter. I will say that I was at first a little worried about instalove when Sorcha and Eamonn met but make no mistakes, this is a true enemies-to-lovers story or at least hate-to-love. The attraction is instant, but I can’t blame them, considering how gorgeous the two are described to be. I do have a tiny complaint in that Sorcha talks to herself a lot in a way that feels a little unnatural, but I feel like criticizing that while continuing to enjoy Geralt’s constant monologue to himself in The Witcher III: Wild Hunt would be a tad hypocritical of me.

Also, this book is full of tiny little details of underutilized fae lore. Sorcha has a hagstone that she wears around her neck, and I love that. The last time I saw one of those properly used was in The Spiderwick Chronicles, and that was a long, long time ago. Also, the law of true names! One old piece of fae lore was that knowing a faerie’s true name gave you complete control over them (and vice-versa). A cute little detail related to this is that, at first, the faeries introduce themselves as the type of fae they are. For example, a pixie is simply called Pixie at first, and a boggart is just known as Boggart. Again, this isn’t a piece of lore I’ve seen used well in a long time, and it’s delightful!

Now for the characters and romance! Sorcha is a tough girl, aware of her own flaws. She has nothing but respect for her sisters (the other women who work at the brothel, who aren’t blood-related but still love each other like family), and, to put it simply: girl got game. Without saying too much (coughcough) Sorcha knows how to take charge even in the face of a seven-foot-something fae king. The king himself, Eamonn, is the perfect Beauty and the Beast love interest. While intimidating in appearance, and very, very flawed, it doesn’t take long to sympathize with him. He’s easy to recognize as someone who’s been hurt and hides from the world for fear of being hurt again. The side characters are, in a word, wonderful. They provide a lot of fun scenes and funny dialogue while also helping further the plot. As for the romance… it’s swoony, it’s sexy, and it’s thrilling. Sorcha and Eamonn’s scenes together are filled with chemistry, the romantic tension between them was enough to make me hold my breath. Honestly, one of the best parts for me was when Eamonn started the stereotypical possessive fae man bullshit we see so often (and still kinda love a bit when done well. Maas fans know what I’m talking about) and Sorcha shut him down right away. Like I said, she’s a tough woman. She takes no shit.

A couple of quick warnings:

This book has smut. It made me blush. I don’t recommend reading the last quarter in public.

And the mother of all cliffhanger warnings. I exclaimed “No!” out loud when I swiped a page and found myself staring down at the Kindle end-of-book screen. However, the second book is out, so it could be worse.

Overall, this book is a full 5/5 for me. I can’t wait to continue Sorcha and Eamonn’s story in Veins of Magic.

Want to try this yourself? You can find Heart of the Fae on Amazon in paperback, hardcover, and ebook formats (it's also on Kindle Unlimited!). It's also available at Barnes & Noble.

Interested in more of Hamm's work? Find her site here, or her Amazon author page here.

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