Little Brother Gets His Turn to Shine

 The Stolen Heir by Holly Black 

This book is a good decade after the end of the Cruel Prince series because Oak is now 17 or 18 and he was just a little boy in the original trilogy. He is out adventuring, intentionally setting himself up for assassination attempts. And he meets up with Wren, his potential betrothed, but not. She was living in the human world and was adopted by a human family, until her glamor was removed and her family spelled to hate her. She was taken by her real parents back to fairy, where they treated her horribly until she escaped. She then lived in the woods near her human family, watched them, and broke curses. Then she gets attacked by someone who says she is loyal to her, but who Wren thinks is loyal to her real parents, so she runs. She and Oak team up to try to free his "father" Madoc, from her parents. He has to being the hear of Mellith to Lady Nore, but he can't get it. At this point I started to think that the heart was inside Wren, but we were told she was made from snow, so I wasn't sure how she got the heart. Anyway, they adventure and she is so starved for affection she thinks Oak might care for her. Oak, we never really learn his true affections toward Wren, but we know he doesn't want to hurt her. They have an incident, and she frees some prisoners, two of which swear loyalty to her even though she tries to tell them not to. Then they end up with the trolls and Oak ends up poisoned, but he lives. She and his guard get him out. They finally make it to her former castle and she ends up tied up. Then Lady Nore tries to spell her to release her from her vow, which was to do whatever Wren commanded, but Wren won't say it, so she cuts out her tongue so she can't talk. One of her sworn followers gets her the key to get out of the dungeon and she finds a piece of Mab's bone so she is able to regrow her tongue and can speak again. She is able to get to Lady Nore, by getting herself caught, and she starts commanding her. There is a meeting, and her commands didn't exactly backfire, but the didn't work out super well either. During this meeting Wren realizes that she has Mellith's heart and that Oak knew all along. But, now she is super powerful and with just a word kills Lady Nore. She promises the trolls she can break the curse if they swear allegiance to her, which they do. She sends Oak's guard and his father back to Jude, but keeps Oak as a prisoner, and puts the bridle on him so she has control over him. The book ends with Oak in prison, trying to talk to Wren. As far as cliffhangers go, it was mild. But, it does have me curious about how this series will wrap up. I enjoyed this, not as much as the original series, but I did enjoy it.