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The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door
From the author of The Magician's Daughter comes The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door, a mythic, magical tale full of secret scholarship, faerie curses, and the deadliest spells of all—the ones that friends cast on each other.
All they needed to break the world was a door, and someone to open it.
Camford, 1920. Gilded and glittering, England's secret magical academy is no place for Clover, a commoner with neither connections nor magical blood. She tells herself she has fought her way there only to find a cure for her brother Matthew, one of the few survivors of a faerie attack on the battlefields of WWI which left the doors to faerie country sealed, the study of its magic banned, and its victims cursed.
But when Clover catches the eye of golden boy Alden Lennox-Fontaine and his friends, doors that were previously closed to her are flung wide open, and she soon finds herself enmeshed in the seductive world of the country's magical aristocrats. The summer she spends in Alden’s orbit leaves a fateful mark: months of joyous friendship and mutual study come crashing down when experiments go awry, and old secrets are unearthed.
Years later, when the faerie seals break, Clover knows it’s because of what they did. And she knows that she must seek the help of people she once called friends—and now doesn’t quite know what to call—if there’s any hope of saving the world as they know it.
All they needed to break the world was a door, and someone to open it.
Camford, 1920. Gilded and glittering, England's secret magical academy is no place for Clover, a commoner with neither connections nor magical blood. She tells herself she has fought her way there only to find a cure for her brother Matthew, one of the few survivors of a faerie attack on the battlefields of WWI which left the doors to faerie country sealed, the study of its magic banned, and its victims cursed.
But when Clover catches the eye of golden boy Alden Lennox-Fontaine and his friends, doors that were previously closed to her are flung wide open, and she soon finds herself enmeshed in the seductive world of the country's magical aristocrats. The summer she spends in Alden’s orbit leaves a fateful mark: months of joyous friendship and mutual study come crashing down when experiments go awry, and old secrets are unearthed.
Years later, when the faerie seals break, Clover knows it’s because of what they did. And she knows that she must seek the help of people she once called friends—and now doesn’t quite know what to call—if there’s any hope of saving the world as they know it.
33 pages, Audiobook
First published October 22, 2024
499 people are currently reading
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About the author
H.G. Parry
9 books1,310 followersH.G. Parry lives in a book-infested flat in Wellington, New Zealand, which she shares with her sister and two overactive rabbits. She holds a PhD in English Literature from Victoria University of Wellington, and teaches English, Film, and Media Studies. Her short fiction has appeared in Intergalactic Medicine Show, Daily Science Fiction, and small press anthologies. The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep is her debut novel.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,203 reviews
February 12, 2025
In a Nutshell: A character-driven historical fantasy combining vibes of dark academia and faerie magic. Interesting plot, complex characters, well-handled themes. Plenty of magic but need to wait a long while for it. Might seem like YA because of the characters’ ages, but the content and the plot work for adults too. Loses a little bit of steam at times, but overall, a great option for lovers of this genre.
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Plot Preview:
Bookish Yays:
🍀 Clover: A bit bristly at the start and also naïve almost throughout the 1920 timeline. But also ambitious and determined. Unlike typical “poor outsider” protagonists, she is not afraid to bend the rules. She’s a flawed character, which makes the story a lot more interesting to read in her voice.
🍀 Hero and Eddie, two of Clover’s friends, are excellent secondary characters. Though Eddie gets a relatively muted role, both Hero and he make their presence felt. I liked their individual personalities. Other great characters were Clover’s brother Matthew (I’d love to read a spinoff telling Matthew’s story), and Clover’s mentor Lady Anjali Winter (Indian immigrant, excellently written.)
🍀 Thanks to the main friends’ group being in their late teens, the book might feel a bit YA at times. However, it doesn’t have the most common YA pitfall: a whiny protagonist with loads of inner rambling. All the characters sound and act their age without going too stereotypically teen.
🍀 The story is written as a flashback journal narrative from much in the future, and the author maintains this tone throughout. The writing is interspersed with observations, elucidations and emotions from the older Clover looking back on the past events – a great writing choice.
🍀 Love the setting of alternate England, where the Great War did occur, but also had fae interference. The historical portrayal felt fairly authentic.
🍀 The themes of wealth/class discrimination, gender discrimination, knowledge restriction, anticolonialism, and most of all, the selfishness of humans.
🍀 The magic and the faerie content, though not frequent throughout the book, is still fun to read.
🍀 The writing is truly beautiful, with lyrical descriptions and lovely metaphors.
Bookish Mixed Bags:
🌳 The world-building gave mixed vibes. While a few settings were well-described, the rest of the book felt standard. Some parts reminded me strongly of Babel and Harry Potter, though in a good way.
🌳 The concept of “Camford University”, set up as the third reputed university along with Oxford and Cambridge. (There’s a good reason its name is an amalgamation of the other two.) However, though the book could be called ‘dark academia’ to some extent, the use of Camford is more as a location than as an institution of learning. The professor who’s supposed to be Clover’s mentor is forgotten soon after he is introduced. We hardly get to see any magical classes or teachers or training. The only dominant Camford location is the library. I wish there had been a bit more focus on the training part also to make the location feel essential to the plot.
🌳 While I did love the journal-style storytelling, this also means that there is a lot of foreshadowing. Most of it is fine, but sometimes, the foreshadowing feels too blatant.
🌳 Though the title promises us the ‘scholar’ and the ‘last faerie door’, the story has way more ‘scholar’ than ‘faerie door’. You need a lot of patience at the start because the book takes a long time to get to the faerie parts. Of course, once these come, they are worth the wait.
🌳 The narrative jumps a decade after a point. It takes time to get used to the sudden change in character circumstances. This section is darker than the earlier ones, but has many more twists and surprises.
Bookish Nays:
🍂 Too much secret keeping, mainly but not only by one character. It feels annoyingly repetitive after a point.
🍂 The overall pacing is quite slow, but some parts of the book drag too much, especially in the initial section before *that* summer, and the final face-off, even though it has a lot happening.
🍂 I wasn’t a fan of some of the events towards the end – they felt much over the top and left some unanswered questions.
All in all, while the book could have done better in its pacing and worldbuilding, the story was still interesting enough. The characters worked the best for me, though I see how readers who prefer likeable protagonists might have an issue with Clover.
This is my second H.G. Parry book, after ‘The Magician’s Daughter’, another standalone historical fantasy. Both books have good characters and are somewhat YA in tone. However, ‘The Magician’s Daughter’ has better magical elements, while ‘The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door’ fares better in terms of plot complexity. I liked both the books, and would love to read more by this author.
Definitely recommended to those who enjoy character-driven historical fantasy. Technically, this is an adult fantasy, but considering the ages of the characters it could easily work for older YA Fantasy readers as well.
3.75 stars. (1920 timeline – 4 stars, second timeline – 3.5 stars.)
My thanks to Little, Brown Book Group UK and Orbit for providing the DRC of “The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Connect with me through:
My Blog || The StoryGraph || Instagram || Threads || X/Twitter || Facebook ||
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Plot Preview:
1920. “Camford”, UK. Seventeen-year-old Clover is a commoner with no wealth or connections or even magical blood. So as a student at the Camford University of Magical Scholarship, where almost every student comes from rich families with magic in their blood, Clover knows that she must strive her best and learn enough magic to find a cure for her elder brother Matthew, one of the handful of survivors of a faerie attack on the battlefield during the Great War. But as the study of faerie magic has been banned after that incident, Clover’s options are limited.
Clover finds her tribe with Alden – a spoilt rich boy with similar research interests as Clover, and his two friends – Hero (the only other female student at Camford) and Eddie (who loves plants more than anything.) With this trio, Clover learns more about friendship and heartbreak, and yes, even faerie doors. However, as often happens during dangerous pursuits, this friendship too is threatened by an unforeseen event, which creates repercussions even years later.
The story comes to us in Clover’s first-person perspective, written as a flashback from some point in the future.
Bookish Yays:
🍀 Clover: A bit bristly at the start and also naïve almost throughout the 1920 timeline. But also ambitious and determined. Unlike typical “poor outsider” protagonists, she is not afraid to bend the rules. She’s a flawed character, which makes the story a lot more interesting to read in her voice.
🍀 Hero and Eddie, two of Clover’s friends, are excellent secondary characters. Though Eddie gets a relatively muted role, both Hero and he make their presence felt. I liked their individual personalities. Other great characters were Clover’s brother Matthew (I’d love to read a spinoff telling Matthew’s story), and Clover’s mentor Lady Anjali Winter (Indian immigrant, excellently written.)
🍀 Thanks to the main friends’ group being in their late teens, the book might feel a bit YA at times. However, it doesn’t have the most common YA pitfall: a whiny protagonist with loads of inner rambling. All the characters sound and act their age without going too stereotypically teen.
🍀 The story is written as a flashback journal narrative from much in the future, and the author maintains this tone throughout. The writing is interspersed with observations, elucidations and emotions from the older Clover looking back on the past events – a great writing choice.
🍀 Love the setting of alternate England, where the Great War did occur, but also had fae interference. The historical portrayal felt fairly authentic.
🍀 The themes of wealth/class discrimination, gender discrimination, knowledge restriction, anticolonialism, and most of all, the selfishness of humans.
🍀 The magic and the faerie content, though not frequent throughout the book, is still fun to read.
🍀 The writing is truly beautiful, with lyrical descriptions and lovely metaphors.
Bookish Mixed Bags:
🌳 The world-building gave mixed vibes. While a few settings were well-described, the rest of the book felt standard. Some parts reminded me strongly of Babel and Harry Potter, though in a good way.
🌳 The concept of “Camford University”, set up as the third reputed university along with Oxford and Cambridge. (There’s a good reason its name is an amalgamation of the other two.) However, though the book could be called ‘dark academia’ to some extent, the use of Camford is more as a location than as an institution of learning. The professor who’s supposed to be Clover’s mentor is forgotten soon after he is introduced. We hardly get to see any magical classes or teachers or training. The only dominant Camford location is the library. I wish there had been a bit more focus on the training part also to make the location feel essential to the plot.
🌳 While I did love the journal-style storytelling, this also means that there is a lot of foreshadowing. Most of it is fine, but sometimes, the foreshadowing feels too blatant.
🌳 Though the title promises us the ‘scholar’ and the ‘last faerie door’, the story has way more ‘scholar’ than ‘faerie door’. You need a lot of patience at the start because the book takes a long time to get to the faerie parts. Of course, once these come, they are worth the wait.
🌳 The narrative jumps a decade after a point. It takes time to get used to the sudden change in character circumstances. This section is darker than the earlier ones, but has many more twists and surprises.
Bookish Nays:
🍂 Too much secret keeping, mainly but not only by one character. It feels annoyingly repetitive after a point.
🍂 The overall pacing is quite slow, but some parts of the book drag too much, especially in the initial section before *that* summer, and the final face-off, even though it has a lot happening.
🍂 I wasn’t a fan of some of the events towards the end – they felt much over the top and left some unanswered questions.
All in all, while the book could have done better in its pacing and worldbuilding, the story was still interesting enough. The characters worked the best for me, though I see how readers who prefer likeable protagonists might have an issue with Clover.
This is my second H.G. Parry book, after ‘The Magician’s Daughter’, another standalone historical fantasy. Both books have good characters and are somewhat YA in tone. However, ‘The Magician’s Daughter’ has better magical elements, while ‘The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door’ fares better in terms of plot complexity. I liked both the books, and would love to read more by this author.
Definitely recommended to those who enjoy character-driven historical fantasy. Technically, this is an adult fantasy, but considering the ages of the characters it could easily work for older YA Fantasy readers as well.
3.75 stars. (1920 timeline – 4 stars, second timeline – 3.5 stars.)
My thanks to Little, Brown Book Group UK and Orbit for providing the DRC of “The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Connect with me through:
My Blog || The StoryGraph || Instagram || Threads || X/Twitter || Facebook ||
November 10, 2024
The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door is a captivating, dark academia novel featuring a magical school and the fae.
It begins in 1920 when Clover Hill desperately wants to learn magic to break the faerie curse her brother received during WWI. She studies and soon becomes a student at the elite and secret magical academy known as Camford. Immediately, Clover is an outsider, ignored by her peers. That is until she meets Alden Lennox-Fontaine, a charming and clever boy, who welcomes her into his friend group. Clover spends the summer at Alden’s home, where the culmination of their studying and experiments go awry and have lasting consequences.
The first chunk of this book has top-tier magical school/dark academia content. It’s up there with HP and The Secret History. The plot pivots away from the school setting but is no less compelling. There’s tons of foreshadowing, which had me glued to the pages.
It explores discussions on class and entitlement.
I enjoyed the author’s last book, The Magician’s Daughter, but this standalone is even better. The writing is excellent and feels cozy despite the dark content.
If you’re looking for a thoroughly riveting dark academia/magical school setting, this is the one.
Thank you to Orbit for providing a copy to review.
https://booksandwheels.com
It begins in 1920 when Clover Hill desperately wants to learn magic to break the faerie curse her brother received during WWI. She studies and soon becomes a student at the elite and secret magical academy known as Camford. Immediately, Clover is an outsider, ignored by her peers. That is until she meets Alden Lennox-Fontaine, a charming and clever boy, who welcomes her into his friend group. Clover spends the summer at Alden’s home, where the culmination of their studying and experiments go awry and have lasting consequences.
The first chunk of this book has top-tier magical school/dark academia content. It’s up there with HP and The Secret History. The plot pivots away from the school setting but is no less compelling. There’s tons of foreshadowing, which had me glued to the pages.
It explores discussions on class and entitlement.
I enjoyed the author’s last book, The Magician’s Daughter, but this standalone is even better. The writing is excellent and feels cozy despite the dark content.
If you’re looking for a thoroughly riveting dark academia/magical school setting, this is the one.
Thank you to Orbit for providing a copy to review.
https://booksandwheels.com
October 23, 2024
good soup: another book exploring exploitation at the heart of academia
dark academia but make it fae?? loved this
dark academia but make it fae?? loved this
June 4, 2025
now this is how you do a fucking good dark academia book!!!
October 27, 2024
Thank you to NetGalley and Redhook Books for providing a digital review copy in exchange for my honest opinion.
Loving character driven stories is both a blessing and a curse. Is it worth seeing so much of someone– seeing their personality, their likes and dislikes, their fears and dreams, their relationships, if it all ends in heartbreak? But I digress.
If you like hidden magical schools, dark and forbidden fae magic, and saving the world with your estranged friends, you might fall a little bit in love with The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door. Yes, there’s magic and curses and plants galore, but the true heart of the story is within its relationships– the bonds between our four main characters: Clover, Alden, Hero, and Eddie. If you’re a fan of the Raven Cycle series, I think you’ll want to give this a try. The story is told in four parts, allowing us to witness how their relationships evolve over time; and what I think Parry does a fantastic job showing is how love can conflict with personal ambition.
Loving character driven stories is both a blessing and a curse. Is it worth seeing so much of someone– seeing their personality, their likes and dislikes, their fears and dreams, their relationships, if it all ends in heartbreak? But I digress.
If you like hidden magical schools, dark and forbidden fae magic, and saving the world with your estranged friends, you might fall a little bit in love with The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door. Yes, there’s magic and curses and plants galore, but the true heart of the story is within its relationships– the bonds between our four main characters: Clover, Alden, Hero, and Eddie. If you’re a fan of the Raven Cycle series, I think you’ll want to give this a try. The story is told in four parts, allowing us to witness how their relationships evolve over time; and what I think Parry does a fantastic job showing is how love can conflict with personal ambition.
September 29, 2025
4.5★
In the end, it was four words that changed the course of our lives and the history of the world. Perhaps it wasn’t really so surprising. They were, after all, the most important words in any language.
“What are you reading?”
a slow but immersive read with influences of emily wilde and vicious set in post WW1 england.
TSATLFD critiques not only academia but elitism and classism as well, with colonization playing a later part.
the first half was a bit slow but enjoyable, i just wish maybe we got some more specificity of the magical world in the every day.
i did really come to love this friend group and thus feel the emotional impact of it throughout its course. all four were complex and interesting, with their own unique quirks that prevented them from feeling like copy paste.
i especially liked the FMC clover’s later introspection and reckoning with her younger self’s shortcomings and flaws.
while there were some pacing and plot issues for me, i overall really enjoyed this and felt quite emotional at the end. i look forward to more reads from parry.
In the end, it was four words that changed the course of our lives and the history of the world. Perhaps it wasn’t really so surprising. They were, after all, the most important words in any language.
“What are you reading?”
a slow but immersive read with influences of emily wilde and vicious set in post WW1 england.
TSATLFD critiques not only academia but elitism and classism as well, with colonization playing a later part.
the first half was a bit slow but enjoyable, i just wish maybe we got some more specificity of the magical world in the every day.
i did really come to love this friend group and thus feel the emotional impact of it throughout its course. all four were complex and interesting, with their own unique quirks that prevented them from feeling like copy paste.
i especially liked the FMC clover’s later introspection and reckoning with her younger self’s shortcomings and flaws.
while there were some pacing and plot issues for me, i overall really enjoyed this and felt quite emotional at the end. i look forward to more reads from parry.
November 4, 2025
A historical fantasy book in 2 parts, one set in 1920-1921, the other in 1929: a farm girl from northern England finds out magic is real and affecting her WWI survivor brother and sets out to study magic, for her own sake and ambitions but also hoping to save him from the curse affecting him. She makes aristocratic friends in magic university, with dark academia tinges. The magical university is literally Camford, accessible from both Cambridge and Oxford, faerie magic, grand house parties, glamour all round, and so on, and this is the first part. It is very slow-moving, but it is thoughtful and believable, even if much, much too slow.
The 9 years after part is instead very fast-moving, plot and action all coming together, and it is frankly stupid. The author always tries really hard to explain every single decision the characters make and every feeling, but the plot relies on coincidences, our earnest, brilliant (ah!) POV character actually acting quite stupidly at many things, with a surprise twist that only works because the narrator kind of lied in her POV and a final dramatic decision that makes no sense . I respected the first part of this book a lot, but I lost a loss of the respect I had in the second part. All that for this? Ok, I guess.
4 stars to the first part (though it is slow), 2 stars for the second part (it is well written), averaging it out to 3.
Some other remarks:
This was a really low-key book about any kind of sexual or romantic attraction or even (apart from one character) sexual orientation of the characters. And that should be fresh and a plus in this era of romantasy and YA fantasy, but here I am complaining about it, that it added to the tepid quality of the story. Part of it is that the author is queerbaiting a bit, playing a bit coy, trying to reveal later sexual orientation. Who is it that Clover is really attracted to, or Matthew's relationship with Sam (I need a rant about that..) but there is no feeling of yearning or lust. There is sex and references to sex, almost out of the blue, and after the fact, past love is mentioned as a motivation, but it just was not there.
I did not like Clover. I am supposed to, she is made to be so sympathetic, every single box ticked off, every action and feeling explained and contextualized, but I just did not believe in her much, how every decision and insight must come from her, how artificial her central position in the plot felt like. And in small things her character seemed quite contradictory, like your friend told you her family is in dire financial straits, stop letting her buy you lots of fancy clothes. Or if you and your friend have finally figured out your other friend has been
Secondary characters felt underserved. Many. Particularly Matthew and his relationship with Sam but maybe that was just queerbaiting? But then there is the wife, by name only, and I kept wondering how she would feel about so many things she seems to be a part of Or even Hero in general. I kept thinking, wait, their stories are more interesting to me than all this focus on Clover.
This is not a subtle book. It is not didactic, or not explicitly so, but the author feels the need to explain away almost every single thing and feeling (except things that seem like holes in plot or worldbuilding or anything related to romantic feelings). And that was tedious somehow. I am ok with some ambiguity. But maybe fiction, particularly of this kind, is getting less subtle (and longer in word count). It made me want to go reread Patricia A. McKillip or C.J. Cherryh or Ellen Kushner. Maybe I will.
In all, I liked the writing a lot, I think the author is a step above many others currently writing this sort of thing, and I am going to follow her career. I would be really interested in reading shorter fiction by her or collaboration work. The plot and characters in this book just did not fully work for me.
The 9 years after part is instead very fast-moving, plot and action all coming together, and it is frankly stupid. The author always tries really hard to explain every single decision the characters make and every feeling, but the plot relies on coincidences, our earnest, brilliant (ah!) POV character actually acting quite stupidly at many things, with a surprise twist that only works because the narrator kind of lied in her POV and a final dramatic decision that makes no sense . I respected the first part of this book a lot, but I lost a loss of the respect I had in the second part. All that for this? Ok, I guess.
4 stars to the first part (though it is slow), 2 stars for the second part (it is well written), averaging it out to 3.
Some other remarks:
This was a really low-key book about any kind of sexual or romantic attraction or even (apart from one character) sexual orientation of the characters. And that should be fresh and a plus in this era of romantasy and YA fantasy, but here I am complaining about it, that it added to the tepid quality of the story. Part of it is that the author is queerbaiting a bit, playing a bit coy, trying to reveal later sexual orientation. Who is it that Clover is really attracted to, or Matthew's relationship with Sam (I need a rant about that..) but there is no feeling of yearning or lust. There is sex and references to sex, almost out of the blue, and after the fact, past love is mentioned as a motivation, but it just was not there.
I did not like Clover. I am supposed to, she is made to be so sympathetic, every single box ticked off, every action and feeling explained and contextualized, but I just did not believe in her much, how every decision and insight must come from her, how artificial her central position in the plot felt like. And in small things her character seemed quite contradictory, like your friend told you her family is in dire financial straits, stop letting her buy you lots of fancy clothes. Or if you and your friend have finally figured out your other friend has been
Secondary characters felt underserved. Many. Particularly Matthew and his relationship with Sam but maybe that was just queerbaiting? But then there is the wife, by name only, and I kept wondering how she would feel about so many things she seems to be a part of Or even Hero in general. I kept thinking, wait, their stories are more interesting to me than all this focus on Clover.
This is not a subtle book. It is not didactic, or not explicitly so, but the author feels the need to explain away almost every single thing and feeling (except things that seem like holes in plot or worldbuilding or anything related to romantic feelings). And that was tedious somehow. I am ok with some ambiguity. But maybe fiction, particularly of this kind, is getting less subtle (and longer in word count). It made me want to go reread Patricia A. McKillip or C.J. Cherryh or Ellen Kushner. Maybe I will.
In all, I liked the writing a lot, I think the author is a step above many others currently writing this sort of thing, and I am going to follow her career. I would be really interested in reading shorter fiction by her or collaboration work. The plot and characters in this book just did not fully work for me.
December 31, 2024
I have conflicted feelings about this one!!
A dark academia fantasy about Clover, a farmer who dreams of academia and seeks a cure for her brother’s fae-afflicted curse. She attends a magical academy, she studies spellcraft with her friends, and she reckons with the inevitable consequences. Thematically, it's very successful; Parry's focus is on how academia is incentivized to uphold class disparities, coupled with a very earnest "Perhaps the real magic was the friends we made along the way" kind of vibe.
But this book is also WAY WAY WAY too long. The story’s direct prose style meant that we spent pages with Clover’s internal narrative about how she felt about each plot point: how glad she was to spend X moment with her friends, her acknowledgement of her own outsider status, her love for magic and learning. This is exacerbated by the fact that Parry really REALLY wants you to go all in on the found family aspect, but doesn’t spend enough time letting these characters build off of one another naturally. I see an easy solution, where Clover’s revelations about her own status and ambitions are revealed through carefully considered conversations with the core cast. Instead, the climax is disrupted by characters cycling through monologues . . . . . .
That being said, when it was good it was good, and I can see myself recommending this book to people who enjoyed the aesthetic trappings of divine rivals and Emily Wilde’s encyclopedia of fairies
A dark academia fantasy about Clover, a farmer who dreams of academia and seeks a cure for her brother’s fae-afflicted curse. She attends a magical academy, she studies spellcraft with her friends, and she reckons with the inevitable consequences. Thematically, it's very successful; Parry's focus is on how academia is incentivized to uphold class disparities, coupled with a very earnest "Perhaps the real magic was the friends we made along the way" kind of vibe.
But this book is also WAY WAY WAY too long. The story’s direct prose style meant that we spent pages with Clover’s internal narrative about how she felt about each plot point: how glad she was to spend X moment with her friends, her acknowledgement of her own outsider status, her love for magic and learning. This is exacerbated by the fact that Parry really REALLY wants you to go all in on the found family aspect, but doesn’t spend enough time letting these characters build off of one another naturally. I see an easy solution, where Clover’s revelations about her own status and ambitions are revealed through carefully considered conversations with the core cast. Instead, the climax is disrupted by characters cycling through monologues . . . . . .
That being said, when it was good it was good, and I can see myself recommending this book to people who enjoyed the aesthetic trappings of divine rivals and Emily Wilde’s encyclopedia of fairies
October 19, 2024
This is 100% a five star book. It’s amazing. I’m genuinely sad that I finished it a moment ago. The plot seems similar to Harry Potter at first, but the book quickly moves beyond that into a unique, fantastic, magical world all its own.
Four young friends meddle in things they shouldn’t. Isn’t that always how it goes? They must come together years later to fix their mistake.
I really, really hope there is a sequel to this.
Thank you to Redhook Books and NetGalley for an electronic copy in exchange for my honest feedback.
H.G. Parry is now a favorite author of mine.
Four young friends meddle in things they shouldn’t. Isn’t that always how it goes? They must come together years later to fix their mistake.
I really, really hope there is a sequel to this.
Thank you to Redhook Books and NetGalley for an electronic copy in exchange for my honest feedback.
H.G. Parry is now a favorite author of mine.
November 4, 2024
What a brilliant book. A unique blend of dark academia, fantasy, and historical fiction. Top notch writing, beautiful world, gripping and twisty plot, flawed and dynamic characters.
In awe! The story follows Clover Hill, who finds herself thrust into a world of magic in a desperate attempt to save her brother from a faerie curse he's been struck by.
In a world where magic is only known and accessible to the elite few "Families" - Clover is really out of her element when she arrives at Camford (yes, a magical mishmash of Cambridge and Oxford). After a lonely start to the semester, being ignored by those who see her as an unworthy of being there because she is not "Family", she catches the eye of Alden, golden boy, and is immediately recruited into his circle of friends (Hero, a gorgeous, witty girl who seems to have it all figured out and Eddie, a nerdy and awkward guy who loves plants lol).
Clover always had aspirations beyond her life on her family's farm, but she never expected to slowly but surely be accepted by this group of elites in their wondrous world of academia. She doesn't want to lose focus of her main goal, finding a cure for her brother's faerie curse, but as time goes on, and she starts to develop closer friendships with Alden, Hero, and Eddie, and Camford starts to feel more and more like home, she questions her ambitions, what she really wants from life and how selfless her intentions really are. She and her friends also start unraveling secrets about the faerie world, faerie doors, and it turns out, there's more to the "official" story about what's going on with the fae and their curses.
So much I loved about this, I highly recommend going in without reading the synopsis if possible because I was so shocked at how the stakes kept increasing when I thought we maxed out lol. I love how it started as a seemingly nice dark academia story with Clover trying to find her way at this elite, secretive university. Then as she got to know her friends better, learning more about the world and magic system, even more plot threads got introduced and I couldn't put it down! I loooved the complex and layered friendships. Alden especially was such an interesting character and his arc had me so conflicted on how to feel! Hero and Eddie also had so many different facets to them and seeing all their individual dynamics with Clover was amazing. Clover herself was also a really interesting character, I felt so bad for her but proud of everything she accomplished. Even when she made mistakes or was not the best version of herself, I couldn't help but empathize!
The fae in this story were also so refreshing! No "magical hot humans" lol, the fae were mysterious tricksters. The "villain" in the story was also so complex and I could talk about that aspect forever but in an attempt to keep this spoiler free I shall not elaborate here for now.
This book thoughtfully delves into social commentary on class structures, critiques academia, features betrayal, friendship, family and so much more. The writing was so polished, the world was incredibly magical, and the way second person POV was utilized was beautiful. Thoroughly enjoyed this!!
Thank you Orbit Books for the ARC!
In awe! The story follows Clover Hill, who finds herself thrust into a world of magic in a desperate attempt to save her brother from a faerie curse he's been struck by.
In a world where magic is only known and accessible to the elite few "Families" - Clover is really out of her element when she arrives at Camford (yes, a magical mishmash of Cambridge and Oxford). After a lonely start to the semester, being ignored by those who see her as an unworthy of being there because she is not "Family", she catches the eye of Alden, golden boy, and is immediately recruited into his circle of friends (Hero, a gorgeous, witty girl who seems to have it all figured out and Eddie, a nerdy and awkward guy who loves plants lol).
Clover always had aspirations beyond her life on her family's farm, but she never expected to slowly but surely be accepted by this group of elites in their wondrous world of academia. She doesn't want to lose focus of her main goal, finding a cure for her brother's faerie curse, but as time goes on, and she starts to develop closer friendships with Alden, Hero, and Eddie, and Camford starts to feel more and more like home, she questions her ambitions, what she really wants from life and how selfless her intentions really are. She and her friends also start unraveling secrets about the faerie world, faerie doors, and it turns out, there's more to the "official" story about what's going on with the fae and their curses.
So much I loved about this, I highly recommend going in without reading the synopsis if possible because I was so shocked at how the stakes kept increasing when I thought we maxed out lol. I love how it started as a seemingly nice dark academia story with Clover trying to find her way at this elite, secretive university. Then as she got to know her friends better, learning more about the world and magic system, even more plot threads got introduced and I couldn't put it down! I loooved the complex and layered friendships. Alden especially was such an interesting character and his arc had me so conflicted on how to feel! Hero and Eddie also had so many different facets to them and seeing all their individual dynamics with Clover was amazing. Clover herself was also a really interesting character, I felt so bad for her but proud of everything she accomplished. Even when she made mistakes or was not the best version of herself, I couldn't help but empathize!
The fae in this story were also so refreshing! No "magical hot humans" lol, the fae were mysterious tricksters. The "villain" in the story was also so complex and I could talk about that aspect forever but in an attempt to keep this spoiler free I shall not elaborate here for now.
This book thoughtfully delves into social commentary on class structures, critiques academia, features betrayal, friendship, family and so much more. The writing was so polished, the world was incredibly magical, and the way second person POV was utilized was beautiful. Thoroughly enjoyed this!!
Thank you Orbit Books for the ARC!
March 26, 2025
H.G. Parry just keeps getting better. Take a dash of The Secret History, a generous dollop of Babel, and a whole lot of Parry’s characteristically beautiful prose and gift for integrating fascinating historical detail with wonderfully imaginative flights of fancy and you get The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door.
The only downside to the story is that it eventually ends. If the book had been twice as long, I’d have still wanted more.
If you’re looking for a new author to dive into, I highly recommend Parry’s oeuvre—hopefully, you’ll be as enchanted as I am.
The only downside to the story is that it eventually ends. If the book had been twice as long, I’d have still wanted more.
If you’re looking for a new author to dive into, I highly recommend Parry’s oeuvre—hopefully, you’ll be as enchanted as I am.
December 11, 2024
This was just okay. I feel like it tried to do something that other books have already done better.
First, I really wasn't a fan of the narration style. A lot of the book (but particularly the first third or so) read like a diary, with the narrator summarizing her interactions with the secondary characters and how she felt about those encounters after the fact, without the reader getting to experience many of them for ourselves. While the choice felt intentional and the author was consistent with it, this style just left me feeling remote from most of the characters.
...Which would have been fine if this wasn't supposed to be a character driven story, but I think it was given how unremarkable and underwhelming the plot itself was. The magic system wasn't anything special, the fae and their world were barely in the story at all, and the plot progression too often hinged on the supposedly "brilliant" scholars missing something painfully obvious. And while the initial betrayals definitely caught me by surprise, by the end it felt like the conflict had been going on far too long, and the betrayals got so repetitive.
The anti-colonialism messaging and the exploration of systemic inequalities in academia in a fantastical setting reminded me a lot of Naomi Novik's Scholomance series, although the latter in my opinion accomplished it more deftly. So if you're looking for a "this, not that" recommendation, I'd recommend the Scholomance way over this book.
First, I really wasn't a fan of the narration style. A lot of the book (but particularly the first third or so) read like a diary, with the narrator summarizing her interactions with the secondary characters and how she felt about those encounters after the fact, without the reader getting to experience many of them for ourselves. While the choice felt intentional and the author was consistent with it, this style just left me feeling remote from most of the characters.
...Which would have been fine if this wasn't supposed to be a character driven story, but I think it was given how unremarkable and underwhelming the plot itself was. The magic system wasn't anything special, the fae and their world were barely in the story at all, and the plot progression too often hinged on the supposedly "brilliant" scholars missing something painfully obvious. And while the initial betrayals definitely caught me by surprise, by the end it felt like the conflict had been going on far too long, and the betrayals got so repetitive.
The anti-colonialism messaging and the exploration of systemic inequalities in academia in a fantastical setting reminded me a lot of Naomi Novik's Scholomance series, although the latter in my opinion accomplished it more deftly. So if you're looking for a "this, not that" recommendation, I'd recommend the Scholomance way over this book.
March 13, 2025
✩ 5 stars ✩
Thank you to Orbit Books and Redhook for the arc through netgalley as well as a physical arc in exchange for an honest review
Wordless, is honestly how I feel after reading this book. I haven't had a book knock me off my toes in this way in a bit, it's a really unique feeling that I feel can only come from a story like this. This book is the perfect example of the fact that some stories don't need to be series, some stories can be self-contained in one book and hit you like a bag of bricks still.
This book is written for a very specific reader, as it's meant to be savored and absorbed with patience and the willingness to let it open up to you slowly. This is a story for people who enjoy Babel by RF Kuang for it's critiques of academics and especially those who are in power in academics, that influence what education means for people. It's for people who enjoy the comradery of young people, who feel like they are at the height of their power, only to realize the world waits for them and it may not be kind, but they can still influence it, and especially for people who think they are too old to make any change. This is for people who like faeries, and the world that they inhabit and seeing these creatures be terrifying, but so incredibly human still. It's especially for the people who know sometimes you have to burn it all before something better can start again.
Through discussions of power, class, and gender as well as the importance of family, and those who you choose this book provides a story that is meant to be clearly dissected to truly be able to absorb the themes. This isn't a book I would encourage you to read in one sitting, it's one that should be drunk in like the last bit of hot chocolate on a rainy day. The writing style is absolutely impeccable and it wraps you in a blanket, it's easy to fall into this world and feel like you are truly on the page with all the characters.
The characters were one of my favorite parts, Clover, Eddie, Hero and Alden come into focus in such stark contrast to one another, but it's also beautiful how they blend to meet one another and form a friendship. Even if that friendship is shattered at the height of what should be the best time of their lives. Clover and Eddie were my favorite friendship in the quartet, as it's so obvious the love for one another runs so deep, but I'm glad the author realized that it doesn't mean they have to be romantically in love. Seeing this in media is rare, I feel these days, and knowing that they held such platonic love for one another was honestly really important to the story.
Finally, that ending, ruined me. Twice. In the final chapter and in the epilogue. If you've read the book you know what I'm talking about, if you haven't, know that sometimes the best stories show that there is a better future to be had, even at the cost of something dear. Sometimes the best stories don't redeem their characters in every way, because they are human, we are all complicated and that's what makes us human.
[TW: death of a family member, blood, slight gore, war themes, mention of murder, dead bodies]
Thank you to Orbit Books and Redhook for the arc through netgalley as well as a physical arc in exchange for an honest review
Wordless, is honestly how I feel after reading this book. I haven't had a book knock me off my toes in this way in a bit, it's a really unique feeling that I feel can only come from a story like this. This book is the perfect example of the fact that some stories don't need to be series, some stories can be self-contained in one book and hit you like a bag of bricks still.
This book is written for a very specific reader, as it's meant to be savored and absorbed with patience and the willingness to let it open up to you slowly. This is a story for people who enjoy Babel by RF Kuang for it's critiques of academics and especially those who are in power in academics, that influence what education means for people. It's for people who enjoy the comradery of young people, who feel like they are at the height of their power, only to realize the world waits for them and it may not be kind, but they can still influence it, and especially for people who think they are too old to make any change. This is for people who like faeries, and the world that they inhabit and seeing these creatures be terrifying, but so incredibly human still. It's especially for the people who know sometimes you have to burn it all before something better can start again.
Through discussions of power, class, and gender as well as the importance of family, and those who you choose this book provides a story that is meant to be clearly dissected to truly be able to absorb the themes. This isn't a book I would encourage you to read in one sitting, it's one that should be drunk in like the last bit of hot chocolate on a rainy day. The writing style is absolutely impeccable and it wraps you in a blanket, it's easy to fall into this world and feel like you are truly on the page with all the characters.
The characters were one of my favorite parts, Clover, Eddie, Hero and Alden come into focus in such stark contrast to one another, but it's also beautiful how they blend to meet one another and form a friendship. Even if that friendship is shattered at the height of what should be the best time of their lives. Clover and Eddie were my favorite friendship in the quartet, as it's so obvious the love for one another runs so deep, but I'm glad the author realized that it doesn't mean they have to be romantically in love. Seeing this in media is rare, I feel these days, and knowing that they held such platonic love for one another was honestly really important to the story.
Finally, that ending, ruined me. Twice. In the final chapter and in the epilogue. If you've read the book you know what I'm talking about, if you haven't, know that sometimes the best stories show that there is a better future to be had, even at the cost of something dear. Sometimes the best stories don't redeem their characters in every way, because they are human, we are all complicated and that's what makes us human.
[TW: death of a family member, blood, slight gore, war themes, mention of murder, dead bodies]
February 16, 2025
I thought that I had given up on fae books, but The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door burst from the ether and became one of the best books I read in 2024.
Basically, in the wake of WWI, a brother returns home with grievous faerie injuries, and his sister vows to be the one who will save his life. She is accepted to a secret magic university, where she falls into an unlikely friendship with a group of peers. And their one, shimmering, perfect summer threatens to change everything.
The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door roots itself with a strong sense of place. It gives that nostalgic academic vibe complete with the main character as a charity student finding their way amongst the privileged elite. It is the glowing effervescence of new friendship against the miasma of latent trauma. It is yearning and heartbreak and secrets and betrayal.
If you’re in the mood for a book that feels like If We Were Villains but with sinister, otherworldly fae, then I highly, highly recommend The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door. It’s an underrated gem!!!!
Thank you so much @orbitbooks_us for sending me a copy 🖤
follow me on bookstagram!
Basically, in the wake of WWI, a brother returns home with grievous faerie injuries, and his sister vows to be the one who will save his life. She is accepted to a secret magic university, where she falls into an unlikely friendship with a group of peers. And their one, shimmering, perfect summer threatens to change everything.
The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door roots itself with a strong sense of place. It gives that nostalgic academic vibe complete with the main character as a charity student finding their way amongst the privileged elite. It is the glowing effervescence of new friendship against the miasma of latent trauma. It is yearning and heartbreak and secrets and betrayal.
If you’re in the mood for a book that feels like If We Were Villains but with sinister, otherworldly fae, then I highly, highly recommend The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door. It’s an underrated gem!!!!
Thank you so much @orbitbooks_us for sending me a copy 🖤
follow me on bookstagram!
December 26, 2024
This had so much potential but ultimately should have been edited down and the plot refined quite a bit.
August 18, 2024
ִֶָ𓂃࣪⊹✧ 3.75
If you want to read a book set in a magical school in the 1920s, where life coexists with fairies, you need to put this on your tbr.
I enjoyed this book a good amount. The dark academia setting, with all the magic lessons (incantations and runes), was my favorite because it is so unique, especially in how they create connections with the fairies. I liked how the portrayal of one reckless choice and flaw could affect the entire plot. In this book, I truly saw how people’s greed for power affects their morality and challenges what they tend to believe. The friendship and journey of these characters fascinated me, because, in the end, they come back together to support each other and make things right.
Even though I liked almost everything about the book, it was very slow from beginning to end. I think I finally got into the story about halfway through the book. The concept of this book is good, but there are some execution issues that were somewhat lacking. I know it focuses on the main characters, but the depth of them and other characters that actually effect the storyline was somewhat lacking. The world-building is mesmerizing, but at the same time, some aspects feel small and lack detail. There’s also a plot hole regarding the magical abilities; even though half of the answers were provided by the end, it’s still confusing. By the end, I felt like I needed more from the book, but it just ended in a way that was actually acceptable yet still left me unsettled.
However, despite all of that, I still felt good about this book. It’s not boring and is somewhat engaging. Not to mention, the writing is beautiful, so I was in awe from chapter to chapter. I think if you liked emily wilde series you should pick this one up, it has similar vibes and a really good plot.
Big thanks to NetGalley and Redhook for providing this digital advanced reader copy (e-ARC) in exchange for an honest review.
If you want to read a book set in a magical school in the 1920s, where life coexists with fairies, you need to put this on your tbr.
I enjoyed this book a good amount. The dark academia setting, with all the magic lessons (incantations and runes), was my favorite because it is so unique, especially in how they create connections with the fairies. I liked how the portrayal of one reckless choice and flaw could affect the entire plot. In this book, I truly saw how people’s greed for power affects their morality and challenges what they tend to believe. The friendship and journey of these characters fascinated me, because, in the end, they come back together to support each other and make things right.
Even though I liked almost everything about the book, it was very slow from beginning to end. I think I finally got into the story about halfway through the book. The concept of this book is good, but there are some execution issues that were somewhat lacking. I know it focuses on the main characters, but the depth of them and other characters that actually effect the storyline was somewhat lacking. The world-building is mesmerizing, but at the same time, some aspects feel small and lack detail. There’s also a plot hole regarding the magical abilities; even though half of the answers were provided by the end, it’s still confusing. By the end, I felt like I needed more from the book, but it just ended in a way that was actually acceptable yet still left me unsettled.
However, despite all of that, I still felt good about this book. It’s not boring and is somewhat engaging. Not to mention, the writing is beautiful, so I was in awe from chapter to chapter. I think if you liked emily wilde series you should pick this one up, it has similar vibes and a really good plot.
Big thanks to NetGalley and Redhook for providing this digital advanced reader copy (e-ARC) in exchange for an honest review.
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December 3, 2024
"It wasn't truly that, though. Perhaps I simply fell out of love with Camford. That can be the most insidious way to keep someone out of a place: to make it so unpleasant they no longer see the point in fighting to be there."
I've been chasing the same high I felt reading Emily Wilde, and this very much scratched that itch.
Faeries, academia, adventure and danger galore.
It's right to tell children that monsters can be defeated. I was just far too slow to grow up and realise that most of the time they aren't.
It's like if The Warm Hands of Ghosts and Emily Wilde had a baby and the uncle was A Marvellous Light, with the intersection of deep trauma of WWI and the Spanish flu meeting with the academic rigor of a deeply patriarchal and classist institution.
Anywho, this is a book about friendship and class. About colonization and theft. About vertical integration and ethical consumption of knowledge. And it's about how to fix the the world after it's been broken. It's about being eighteen and brilliant with all the knowledge and smarts at your disposal and cleverness in spades, but not the wisdom to manage it. It's about what to do after you made a mistake.
Go in knowing as little as possible.
As long as we were still on this earth there was nothing that couldn't be fixed.
I've been chasing the same high I felt reading Emily Wilde, and this very much scratched that itch.
Faeries, academia, adventure and danger galore.
It's right to tell children that monsters can be defeated. I was just far too slow to grow up and realise that most of the time they aren't.
It's like if The Warm Hands of Ghosts and Emily Wilde had a baby and the uncle was A Marvellous Light, with the intersection of deep trauma of WWI and the Spanish flu meeting with the academic rigor of a deeply patriarchal and classist institution.
Anywho, this is a book about friendship and class. About colonization and theft. About vertical integration and ethical consumption of knowledge. And it's about how to fix the the world after it's been broken. It's about being eighteen and brilliant with all the knowledge and smarts at your disposal and cleverness in spades, but not the wisdom to manage it. It's about what to do after you made a mistake.
Go in knowing as little as possible.
As long as we were still on this earth there was nothing that couldn't be fixed.
October 25, 2024
This was a gem of a book.
At its core, The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door is a love letter to academia and its unconquerable spirit, but at the same time it doesn't shy away from criticising very real issues still present within it like class or gender inequality. This all gets entwined in a story about ambition, the value of friendship and the lengths one would go for knowledge.
The historical and fantasy aspects of the book were truly brilliantly written, but it was the characters that truly stole the show. Never have I read a friendship dynamic so beautifully, so heartachingly real and complex; all the main characters were perfectly flawed (including our unreliable narrator), putting their friendship in balance with their wants and ambitions, but still sticking by each other.
The pacing of the book is fittingly slow, as this is a book that needs not be rushed, but relished one word at a time.
H.G. Parry is trully a master of historical fantasy,and I will surely pick up more of her books in the future.
At its core, The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door is a love letter to academia and its unconquerable spirit, but at the same time it doesn't shy away from criticising very real issues still present within it like class or gender inequality. This all gets entwined in a story about ambition, the value of friendship and the lengths one would go for knowledge.
The historical and fantasy aspects of the book were truly brilliantly written, but it was the characters that truly stole the show. Never have I read a friendship dynamic so beautifully, so heartachingly real and complex; all the main characters were perfectly flawed (including our unreliable narrator), putting their friendship in balance with their wants and ambitions, but still sticking by each other.
The pacing of the book is fittingly slow, as this is a book that needs not be rushed, but relished one word at a time.
H.G. Parry is trully a master of historical fantasy,and I will surely pick up more of her books in the future.
October 7, 2024
Thank you to the publishter for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!
This is dark academia done right. It follows the more traditional dark academia formula that The Secret History sets out - a main character that's offered a glimpse into world of the elite, told from the future, and a central mystery that we vaguely know but don't understand. The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door is kind of like that, but with magic, set in 1920s England, and with a group of very compelling characters. Not all of them are likable, but they're all complex and distinct. I don't think the book does anything new in the genre, but it's very well executed.
My main complaint with a lot of dark academia books being published these days is that they're dark academia in aesthetic only, and never dive into the actual critiques of academic institutions and the elite. This is not the case here - these themes are central to the book, though it does sometimes fall into the trap of having discussions about colonialism and discrimination with regards to the fantasy side of the world, but not really touching much the mundane side of the world. It's not completely skipped over, but I do come out of this book with many questions about the intersection of magical racism/colonialism and the very real-world racism that would have been present in 1920s England.
This was my first H.G. Parry book, and it won't be my last. Again, I don't think this book reinvents the wheel in any way, so if you're looking for that, I don't know if this is going to satisfy you. However, I personally really enjoy the classic dark academia formula, and I think that this is one of the better executed ones I've read in the last few years. I kind of wish the book was a duology, as I do think there's enough content here that could easily have been expanded on, but I think standalone fantasy lovers will be pleased with this one. The pacing of this book is excellent - it's just slow paced enough for you to get to know the characters and the world, but balances that perfectly with the intrigue, so you're never bored.
Overall, I highly recommend this book, and I think that anyone who enjoys dark academia should definitely have this one on their radar.
This is dark academia done right. It follows the more traditional dark academia formula that The Secret History sets out - a main character that's offered a glimpse into world of the elite, told from the future, and a central mystery that we vaguely know but don't understand. The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door is kind of like that, but with magic, set in 1920s England, and with a group of very compelling characters. Not all of them are likable, but they're all complex and distinct. I don't think the book does anything new in the genre, but it's very well executed.
My main complaint with a lot of dark academia books being published these days is that they're dark academia in aesthetic only, and never dive into the actual critiques of academic institutions and the elite. This is not the case here - these themes are central to the book, though it does sometimes fall into the trap of having discussions about colonialism and discrimination with regards to the fantasy side of the world, but not really touching much the mundane side of the world. It's not completely skipped over, but I do come out of this book with many questions about the intersection of magical racism/colonialism and the very real-world racism that would have been present in 1920s England.
This was my first H.G. Parry book, and it won't be my last. Again, I don't think this book reinvents the wheel in any way, so if you're looking for that, I don't know if this is going to satisfy you. However, I personally really enjoy the classic dark academia formula, and I think that this is one of the better executed ones I've read in the last few years. I kind of wish the book was a duology, as I do think there's enough content here that could easily have been expanded on, but I think standalone fantasy lovers will be pleased with this one. The pacing of this book is excellent - it's just slow paced enough for you to get to know the characters and the world, but balances that perfectly with the intrigue, so you're never bored.
Overall, I highly recommend this book, and I think that anyone who enjoys dark academia should definitely have this one on their radar.
November 1, 2025
Absolutely brilliant!! Was completely blown away by H.G. Parry and now a HUGE FAN!! This book is one of my favorite reads of the year and I see myself rereading it often.
Babel meets Emily Wilde and it was a ride that I did not ever want to end. I never knew where this book was going to take me but I was ready for the ride. In the first 14 pages I was already in love and completely invested in the story. I just knew this was going to be a 5 star read. The story focuses on a personal, intergenerational guilt and the idea that true scholarship, when guided by ethics, can be a tool for reparative justice and healing the wounds of the past.
The themes on colonization and cultural appropriation was done brilliantly and beautifully. And academia as a tool for both harm and healing. As a fellow book-lover, I connected instantly with our FMC and her love for knowledge and books.
“𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐫𝐲, 𝐚𝐭 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐭, 𝐈 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝, 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐝𝐢𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐂𝐚𝐦𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐝, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐬 𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐧 𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐬. 𝐈 𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐦𝐲𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐈 𝐝𝐢𝐝𝐧’𝐭 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐞𝐥𝐬𝐞.”
One of the things I loved most about this book was the theme of friendship. How it’s used as an unbreakable chosen bond as well as a source of identity and strength. It is portrayed as a choice, a commitment, and a source of magic as real as any faerie spell.
“𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬, 𝐈 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐲𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟, 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐥𝐞𝐝𝐠𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫. 𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐩𝐮𝐫𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐚𝐦𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐰𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐞 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐠. 𝐓𝐨 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐭𝐡, 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐛𝐞 𝐝𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭.”
What if everything you’ve been taught all your life was actually a lie? Taken from another culture and you see others used for their own personal gain?
By the end of this book, I was an absolute mess. The climax isn't about defeating a colonial army, but about making the right choice. Everyone MUST read.
Babel meets Emily Wilde and it was a ride that I did not ever want to end. I never knew where this book was going to take me but I was ready for the ride. In the first 14 pages I was already in love and completely invested in the story. I just knew this was going to be a 5 star read. The story focuses on a personal, intergenerational guilt and the idea that true scholarship, when guided by ethics, can be a tool for reparative justice and healing the wounds of the past.
The themes on colonization and cultural appropriation was done brilliantly and beautifully. And academia as a tool for both harm and healing. As a fellow book-lover, I connected instantly with our FMC and her love for knowledge and books.
“𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐫𝐲, 𝐚𝐭 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐭, 𝐈 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝, 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐝𝐢𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐂𝐚𝐦𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐝, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐬 𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐧 𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐬. 𝐈 𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐦𝐲𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐈 𝐝𝐢𝐝𝐧’𝐭 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐞𝐥𝐬𝐞.”
One of the things I loved most about this book was the theme of friendship. How it’s used as an unbreakable chosen bond as well as a source of identity and strength. It is portrayed as a choice, a commitment, and a source of magic as real as any faerie spell.
“𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬, 𝐈 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐲𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟, 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐥𝐞𝐝𝐠𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫. 𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐩𝐮𝐫𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐚𝐦𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐰𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐞 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐠. 𝐓𝐨 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐭𝐡, 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐛𝐞 𝐝𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭.”
What if everything you’ve been taught all your life was actually a lie? Taken from another culture and you see others used for their own personal gain?
By the end of this book, I was an absolute mess. The climax isn't about defeating a colonial army, but about making the right choice. Everyone MUST read.
October 14, 2024
Thank you Hachette Book Group and Redhook Books/Orbit for mailing me this ARC! It was a lovely surprise in my mailbox!
If Hermoine, Neville, Draco and Lavender (from HP, obvi) took on fae and an evil Ministry of Magic together...you have this book! If you are a Dark Academia person, this is the perfect book for you!
I loved every character, even the ones I probably shouldn't have. I was attached to each one of them from the start. This book did get a little slow in a couple parts but honestly it was needed for character relationships. I might have just thought it was slow because I was so eager to see what happened but I never skimmed, which was a good sign for me!
I've never heard of this author before but I will now be adding everything she has written to my TBR. Her writing style was made for me!
If Hermoine, Neville, Draco and Lavender (from HP, obvi) took on fae and an evil Ministry of Magic together...you have this book! If you are a Dark Academia person, this is the perfect book for you!
I loved every character, even the ones I probably shouldn't have. I was attached to each one of them from the start. This book did get a little slow in a couple parts but honestly it was needed for character relationships. I might have just thought it was slow because I was so eager to see what happened but I never skimmed, which was a good sign for me!
I've never heard of this author before but I will now be adding everything she has written to my TBR. Her writing style was made for me!
November 29, 2024
This is my third read by this author and I think each one gets better than the last. This story follows Clover in four parts that cover the various periods of her life: as she sends her beloved older brother Matthew off to fight in World War I, her studies of magic in her pursuit of a cure for Matthew’s malady after surviving a faerie attack on the battlefield from a local tutor to a magical school known as Camford, a combination of Cambridge and Oxford where she finds three like-minded friends who join in her interests of faerie magic despite the legality for their own reasons. When their endeavors culminate in a disastrous event, the book picks up eight years later slowly revealing what became of the four students and the repercussions of their foray into a dangerous magic that they didn’t quite understand.
While this book is broken into parts and sometimes it takes a moment to adjust to the changes of settings and/or chronological time from one to the next, I became equally fascinated with each as I progressed through the story. The characters were phenomenal. The complications of family, the building of friendships, the suspicions of other’s actions and their motives and priorities were all explored with a fascinating expertise. I loved the various settings especially the school and the Ashfield estate. The exploration of faerie magic and how it works in this world and the relationship to this magic and the human world was intricate and mysterious throughout especially the divisions of class and their hierarchy.
I think this story would appeal to both dark academia and fae story lovers.
Thank you to Netgalley and Orbit Books for a copy provided for an honest review.
While this book is broken into parts and sometimes it takes a moment to adjust to the changes of settings and/or chronological time from one to the next, I became equally fascinated with each as I progressed through the story. The characters were phenomenal. The complications of family, the building of friendships, the suspicions of other’s actions and their motives and priorities were all explored with a fascinating expertise. I loved the various settings especially the school and the Ashfield estate. The exploration of faerie magic and how it works in this world and the relationship to this magic and the human world was intricate and mysterious throughout especially the divisions of class and their hierarchy.
I think this story would appeal to both dark academia and fae story lovers.
Thank you to Netgalley and Orbit Books for a copy provided for an honest review.
December 30, 2024
The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door by H.G. Parry is a fusion of dark academia and historical fantasy which delves readers into a mesmerising tale of scholarly dreams, forbidden magic and a somber reflection on post war Britain. This is a book of opening doors and closing them, of knowledge holding power and of friendships which last a lifetime.
“I hope you saw Camford. I hope you sat up high as we did so often, a strange pale sun at your back. The air was never still, so that the trees rustled and whispered in constant conversation overhead. Sometimes now, when I'm half asleep and I hear the creak of branches outside, my eyes snap open and I'm sure that I’m home.”
The doors to the fae world are closed and faerie magic is no longer permitted to be practiced. Yet during WW1 on the battlefield of Amiens a door is opened and a faerie breaks loose. When Clover Hill’s brother Matthew returns from the war broken and cursed by dark magic she knows she must find a cure before it takes his life. Camford, a secret magical academy, may hold all the answers but it is not a place that would easily welcome a young female commoner with no magical blood such as Clover. Therefore Clover must fight tooth and nail to be accepted into Camford and once there she must find a way to belong.
Parry has a real skill for bringing her settings to life with elegant, atmospheric prose. Here we are presented a juxtaposition of a Britain recovering from the devastating effects of WW1 and the elusive university of Camford. Oh Camford, how I fell in love with this place, how I longed for it to be real, for me to be able to go there. Camford is best described as the combination of Cambridge and Oxford but catering for education in the Magical Arts. From the labyrinth of corridors to the dazzling library it’s a place of grandeur, a place where knowledge, possibilities and mysteries are endless, a place where futures are made. Yet with every elite institution comes its prejudices and its privileges. In the world of secret magic, only those from the Families, where magic runs through their blood, are readily allowed to study at Camford, rarely are people like Clover permitted and rarely do they accept female scholars. I loved how Parry illustrated the role of women in the 1920s, where they were expected to run a household, take care of their family and eventually marry. This was what Clover’s mother had always expected but this was never the life Clover had wanted, she revelled in learning, reading, broadening her knowledge, and so I became swept away with the story of how she carves her own path despite all the disapproval she faces.
“Because we were all pretending, weren't we? It felt like since the war and the epidemic that followed it the world had been irreparably broken, and we were all trampling barefoot through the shattered fragments as though nothing had happened-as though we weren't all broken too.”
Clover often refers to Camford as home and Parry makes us see why. At Pemble Hill Clover’s responsibilities are endless and when her brother Matthew goes to war, the weight of taking care of younger siblings and running a farm is placed upon her shoulders. When Clover leaves to study at Camford she’s a young woman wrapped with excitement, guilt, loneliness and fear. There is a vulnerability to her, a sense that she isn’t quite sure of her own worth. For who is Clover but a commoner trying to fit into aristocratic society. Yet Camford is like its own little world, far from the struggles of post war, it’s an escapism of itself and it’s where Clover desperately wants to be despite being homesick. I always enjoy a coming of age narrative and Clover finding herself at university, being accepted into a circle of friends and prospering in her studies, was such an enjoyable aspect of this novel. Then as we reach the summer she spends at the Ashfield estate with her friends once again Clover is opened up to another whole new world, one of wealth and care-free days and a place she actually felt immediately accepted in.
Family and friendship are strong themes throughout as most of the motivations of each character are centred on helping or saving those they love. Initially Clover is determined to go to Camford in order to help her brother but once she’s there she embarks upon a whirlwind friendship which introduces her to a life full of indulgence and possibilities with people she can belong with. Charming Alden, elegant and stylish Hero and gentle nature-loving Eddie become the centre of her world and together they become inseparable as they study forbidden fae magic and seek to uncover long buried secrets. Parry really does superbly capture how those years of Clover’s life were intoxicating, fever-dream-like and the moments she was most happy. Yet eventually all good things come to an end and as the novel spans to when these four characters are now adults they must face the mistakes of their past and put wrongs to right. This part hit me emotionally hard as the tone becomes nostalgic, reflective and of great loss. I’m a person who finds change hard to cope with but as Parry reaches the end of Clover’s story she shows us that change is necessary, that to start anew things must be broken, and that good can still come of it. I absolutely loved this sentiment.
“Magic was sparking in my blood now, perhaps not as literally as it would be in the blood of one of the Families, but just as truly, and I couldn't hide it anymore. It was like trying to force myself into ill-fitting clothes, all the while twisting with guilt at not fitting them better.”
The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door showcases Parry’s exquisite ability to bring historical fantasy to life in such an exhilarating way. It’s a novel which immediately enveloped me in a myriad of ways.
“I hope you saw Camford. I hope you sat up high as we did so often, a strange pale sun at your back. The air was never still, so that the trees rustled and whispered in constant conversation overhead. Sometimes now, when I'm half asleep and I hear the creak of branches outside, my eyes snap open and I'm sure that I’m home.”
The doors to the fae world are closed and faerie magic is no longer permitted to be practiced. Yet during WW1 on the battlefield of Amiens a door is opened and a faerie breaks loose. When Clover Hill’s brother Matthew returns from the war broken and cursed by dark magic she knows she must find a cure before it takes his life. Camford, a secret magical academy, may hold all the answers but it is not a place that would easily welcome a young female commoner with no magical blood such as Clover. Therefore Clover must fight tooth and nail to be accepted into Camford and once there she must find a way to belong.
Parry has a real skill for bringing her settings to life with elegant, atmospheric prose. Here we are presented a juxtaposition of a Britain recovering from the devastating effects of WW1 and the elusive university of Camford. Oh Camford, how I fell in love with this place, how I longed for it to be real, for me to be able to go there. Camford is best described as the combination of Cambridge and Oxford but catering for education in the Magical Arts. From the labyrinth of corridors to the dazzling library it’s a place of grandeur, a place where knowledge, possibilities and mysteries are endless, a place where futures are made. Yet with every elite institution comes its prejudices and its privileges. In the world of secret magic, only those from the Families, where magic runs through their blood, are readily allowed to study at Camford, rarely are people like Clover permitted and rarely do they accept female scholars. I loved how Parry illustrated the role of women in the 1920s, where they were expected to run a household, take care of their family and eventually marry. This was what Clover’s mother had always expected but this was never the life Clover had wanted, she revelled in learning, reading, broadening her knowledge, and so I became swept away with the story of how she carves her own path despite all the disapproval she faces.
“Because we were all pretending, weren't we? It felt like since the war and the epidemic that followed it the world had been irreparably broken, and we were all trampling barefoot through the shattered fragments as though nothing had happened-as though we weren't all broken too.”
Clover often refers to Camford as home and Parry makes us see why. At Pemble Hill Clover’s responsibilities are endless and when her brother Matthew goes to war, the weight of taking care of younger siblings and running a farm is placed upon her shoulders. When Clover leaves to study at Camford she’s a young woman wrapped with excitement, guilt, loneliness and fear. There is a vulnerability to her, a sense that she isn’t quite sure of her own worth. For who is Clover but a commoner trying to fit into aristocratic society. Yet Camford is like its own little world, far from the struggles of post war, it’s an escapism of itself and it’s where Clover desperately wants to be despite being homesick. I always enjoy a coming of age narrative and Clover finding herself at university, being accepted into a circle of friends and prospering in her studies, was such an enjoyable aspect of this novel. Then as we reach the summer she spends at the Ashfield estate with her friends once again Clover is opened up to another whole new world, one of wealth and care-free days and a place she actually felt immediately accepted in.
Family and friendship are strong themes throughout as most of the motivations of each character are centred on helping or saving those they love. Initially Clover is determined to go to Camford in order to help her brother but once she’s there she embarks upon a whirlwind friendship which introduces her to a life full of indulgence and possibilities with people she can belong with. Charming Alden, elegant and stylish Hero and gentle nature-loving Eddie become the centre of her world and together they become inseparable as they study forbidden fae magic and seek to uncover long buried secrets. Parry really does superbly capture how those years of Clover’s life were intoxicating, fever-dream-like and the moments she was most happy. Yet eventually all good things come to an end and as the novel spans to when these four characters are now adults they must face the mistakes of their past and put wrongs to right. This part hit me emotionally hard as the tone becomes nostalgic, reflective and of great loss. I’m a person who finds change hard to cope with but as Parry reaches the end of Clover’s story she shows us that change is necessary, that to start anew things must be broken, and that good can still come of it. I absolutely loved this sentiment.
“Magic was sparking in my blood now, perhaps not as literally as it would be in the blood of one of the Families, but just as truly, and I couldn't hide it anymore. It was like trying to force myself into ill-fitting clothes, all the while twisting with guilt at not fitting them better.”
The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door showcases Parry’s exquisite ability to bring historical fantasy to life in such an exhilarating way. It’s a novel which immediately enveloped me in a myriad of ways.
August 15, 2024
Babel but make it for Faeries.
Parry creates a world to be savored, not binged.
This is my third Parry book and I feel like she’s one of those authors that keeps getting better and better. I love that she’s able to create nerdy FMCs that are easy to love, and her latest is no exception (Pub Date 22 Oct 2024). I would categorize it as cozy fantasy with a little dialogue zest.
For fans of Hannah Nicole Maehrer & Heather Fawcett, H. G. Parry will feel like a TBR win.
My thanks to @netgalley & Orbit Books for the ARC. This was very faerie delight.
4/5
Parry creates a world to be savored, not binged.
This is my third Parry book and I feel like she’s one of those authors that keeps getting better and better. I love that she’s able to create nerdy FMCs that are easy to love, and her latest is no exception (Pub Date 22 Oct 2024). I would categorize it as cozy fantasy with a little dialogue zest.
For fans of Hannah Nicole Maehrer & Heather Fawcett, H. G. Parry will feel like a TBR win.
My thanks to @netgalley & Orbit Books for the ARC. This was very faerie delight.
4/5
November 25, 2024
It’s a bit mushy/romantic for me. The closing chapters and epilogue seem to drag. Although rich in fantasy, it’s not really worth the time invested.
Cannot recommend.
Clover, a girl fresh from the farm, wants to study magic and is accepted at Camford (a between worlds campus of fairy land and human earth).
Cover becomes a scholar of magic and part of a team to close the doors between worlds after an escaped fairy wreaks havoc in the mortal world. But closing the door means sacrificing the university and her life’s work. Will the team be effective?
Cannot recommend.
Clover, a girl fresh from the farm, wants to study magic and is accepted at Camford (a between worlds campus of fairy land and human earth).
Cover becomes a scholar of magic and part of a team to close the doors between worlds after an escaped fairy wreaks havoc in the mortal world. But closing the door means sacrificing the university and her life’s work. Will the team be effective?
July 30, 2024
Everything I want from a faerie novel! Cunning Fae, clever hard magic, found family, and hard high stakes that keep the pace unrelenting. You won’t want to miss Parry’s latest masterpiece!
September 8, 2025
Thus far, H. G. Parry has written one book I couldn't finish (A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians), one I loved (The Magician's Daughter), and one I was overall meh about (this one). It's unusual for me to have such varied reactions to books by the same author, so I'm a little intrigued but also a little disappointed.
The first half of the book set in the early 1920s is straight up magic academia, but as I've come to expect from this author, she doesn't shy away from exploring inequality, nuance, and morality. Clover Hill is a scholarship girl to Camford, the magical university for the elite Families and very occasional scholarship student from an ordinary family. Her determination to get in and succeed is at least in part due to the fact that her brother was hit with a faerie curse in the great war. Matthew is still alive, but he needs a cure, and fast. Clover's interest in forbidden faerie magic attracts the attention of three other first-year students who are interested in faerie studies for reasons of their own.
I really liked these parts of the story, even though a lot of time is spent just being a student and hanging out with fellow students Alden, Hero, and Eddie. (Eddie is a poorly socially adjusted botanist - I felt immediate kinship to him.) Parry's Camford is a special place indeed, though mirroring the inequalities of the outside world, and Clover, both female and from non-Family, struggles a bit before finding her space and people. She talks about it in golden terms from a much-later-and-sadder perspective, but it's pretty good while it lasts.
And then the latter half of the book is set eight years later, after a number of things have gone terribly wrong, and I actively disliked just about everything in this half
Clover comes across as a bit of a cypher; she's the narrator, but the characters around her are much more interesting. I truly think Eddie deserved better, and Hero too, for that matter.
I'll try one more H. G. Parry book to reach a conclusion, but The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door is getting returned to the library with no regrets.
The first half of the book set in the early 1920s is straight up magic academia, but as I've come to expect from this author, she doesn't shy away from exploring inequality, nuance, and morality. Clover Hill is a scholarship girl to Camford, the magical university for the elite Families and very occasional scholarship student from an ordinary family. Her determination to get in and succeed is at least in part due to the fact that her brother was hit with a faerie curse in the great war. Matthew is still alive, but he needs a cure, and fast. Clover's interest in forbidden faerie magic attracts the attention of three other first-year students who are interested in faerie studies for reasons of their own.
I really liked these parts of the story, even though a lot of time is spent just being a student and hanging out with fellow students Alden, Hero, and Eddie. (Eddie is a poorly socially adjusted botanist - I felt immediate kinship to him.) Parry's Camford is a special place indeed, though mirroring the inequalities of the outside world, and Clover, both female and from non-Family, struggles a bit before finding her space and people. She talks about it in golden terms from a much-later-and-sadder perspective, but it's pretty good while it lasts.
And then the latter half of the book is set eight years later, after a number of things have gone terribly wrong, and I actively disliked just about everything in this half
Clover comes across as a bit of a cypher; she's the narrator, but the characters around her are much more interesting. I truly think Eddie deserved better, and Hero too, for that matter.
I'll try one more H. G. Parry book to reach a conclusion, but The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door is getting returned to the library with no regrets.
April 25, 2025
Almost put me in a reading slump. This book SHOULD be right up my alley and yet...
I'm not sure what this tool in writing is called specifically but I've been calling it the 'in hindsight voice' of the MC. When they sprinkle little lines about how they "could never have known at the time" or "these were the best days of my life" or "what would happen much sooner than expected". A continuously nostalgic tilt to everything and yet extremely off-putting to me. It made me want to do anything other than read this book because it JUST KEPT HAPPENING multiple times in a single chapter. Enough please. I just want the plot to keep moving, tell me the story as it happens!! Don't keep alluding to the past and future and this and that then etc
Apart from that.. I'm not sure what it was but I couldn't commit to the plot, even 3/4 of the way through the book it felt a bit lackluster with all the back and forth of locations and characters selling each other out and still being hung up on something that happened nearly a decade ago.
The first couple of chapters were probably the best part of the book and I would have rated it higher if the quality had stayed at that level.
I'm not sure what this tool in writing is called specifically but I've been calling it the 'in hindsight voice' of the MC. When they sprinkle little lines about how they "could never have known at the time" or "these were the best days of my life" or "what would happen much sooner than expected". A continuously nostalgic tilt to everything and yet extremely off-putting to me. It made me want to do anything other than read this book because it JUST KEPT HAPPENING multiple times in a single chapter. Enough please. I just want the plot to keep moving, tell me the story as it happens!! Don't keep alluding to the past and future and this and that then etc
Apart from that.. I'm not sure what it was but I couldn't commit to the plot, even 3/4 of the way through the book it felt a bit lackluster with all the back and forth of locations and characters selling each other out and still being hung up on something that happened nearly a decade ago.
The first couple of chapters were probably the best part of the book and I would have rated it higher if the quality had stayed at that level.
June 17, 2025
30 Books in 30 Days, Vol. 5
Book 12/30
This was sooooo close to getting five stars. Might come back to this rating later and bump it up after the book has had a chance to sit in my brain for a while. Historical fantasy, academia, friendship, class issues, non-sexy faeries—I just love when the faeries are dangerous, and here they're really dangerous. The post WWI aspect of the book was also a very good choice thematically for what this story was about. Continue to love H.G. Parry and think she's extremely underrated.
You know what, no, I've talked myself into bumping this up to five stars right now.
[4.5 stars, rounded up]
Book 12/30
This was sooooo close to getting five stars. Might come back to this rating later and bump it up after the book has had a chance to sit in my brain for a while. Historical fantasy, academia, friendship, class issues, non-sexy faeries—I just love when the faeries are dangerous, and here they're really dangerous. The post WWI aspect of the book was also a very good choice thematically for what this story was about. Continue to love H.G. Parry and think she's extremely underrated.
You know what, no, I've talked myself into bumping this up to five stars right now.
[4.5 stars, rounded up]
December 9, 2024
A fabulous story by an author whose work I've come to love. Though it seems like a riff on Harry Potter, it's much darker, more complex, and dealing with weighty things, such as imperialism, power, bigotry, class divisions, post-war trauma, manipulation, and the idea of doing something bad in the name of good.
Clover Hill is a farmgirl, and desperate to leave home. After her brother Matthew returns irreparably damaged by his experiences in WWI, including barely surviving a faerie curse that everyone knows will eventually kill him, she determines to find a way to break the curse and heal him conclusively. And she'll need magic to do it.
Gaining admission by scholarship to an esteemed and secret magical school named Camford, Clover works hard to catch up to the sons of wealthy, magical families who've been steeped in learning and casting magic since their early years. She's shunned by her peers, who are arrogant and look down on a woman from a working family, and even worse, one who is not from one of the Families who have had magic for generations.
One day, she meets Alden Lennox-Fontaine, who instantly charms and captivates her. He draws her into his small circle of friends: Hero, the only other young woman studying at Camford, and Eddie, a painfully shy young man who wants only to learn about botany, and has been bullied by the various scions also at the academy. Both are from Families, though Eddie is dismissed by his parents for not being "normal", and Hero knows she has to excel or her father will marry her off as fast as possible.
Soon, they're all studying and hanging out together. But Clover feels she has a special bond with Alden, who gradually convinces her to research the magic to open faerie doors, which were closed by agreement after the terrible incident that killed many and which Matthew barely survived.
Alden wants to open one for his own reasons, and Clover closes her eyes to the larger consequences, and cajoles the other two to aid them. They pool their knowledge together and attempt to open a door only enough to attract a fairy so Alden and Clover can make their own bargains with it. Of course, the four badly underestimate their skills and the determination and intentions of the summoned faery, and things go horribly wrong, though Clover does get one thing out of the disastrous night. But, the friendship falls apart and the four go their separate ways.
Years later, a horrifying event awakens Clover to the fact that though she's been ignoring it while building her life as a lecturer at Camden, the mess they left behind them was never going to stay secret. Deciding that they must now face up to their past actions and fix the new, more terrible and deadly mess, she calls on her bond with her Camford clique.
H.G. Parry shows us Clover's path to the magical world, and eventually to adulthood, and builds then tears apart the friendship that is the bedrock of her identity in this world.
Clover has many questions when she first enters Camford, but these are soon put aside with her punishing workload, and her slow entry into magical society. Questions such as: where is Camford located? Why do the Families have a special connection to magic? What caused the disaster at the Amiens battlefield? Why is there such a prohibition against learning about faerie magic? Though these lurk in the background of her thoughts, she quickly pushes them aside instead to revel in all she can learn, and the respect she gets from her three friends.
These questions become pertinent when the friends must come back together to save the magical world. Clover has wilfully blinded herself to the many oddities surrounding her once she's pulled into Alden's circle, and she continues to do so as an adult as she loves Camford too much to jeopardize her position with inquiries. She's totally swayed by her supposed acceptance into magical society, but quickly learns just how illusory that acceptance really is, especially in the face of the privilege, power and entitlement of the Families, and the monstrous foundation upon which everything they hold dear is built.
There are times when I found it painful to listen to how easily Clover dismissed her questions and concerns about the privileges of the Families, and how deliberately she manipulated Eddie, and it takes a shocking incident to strip her of her comfortable life and beliefs. I also wondered how she could be so fooled by Alden's charm, when all I saw was arrogance, a lack of regard for others, and terrific self-absorption, but Clover did fall hard for him, and his interest in her intelligence and curiosity no doubt was a powerful incentive to never look harder at the young man.
I loved the world Parry conjured here, and the writing is wonderful. The characters are well drawn and complicated, and Clover's maturity is wonderfully charted, from teen eager to leave home for adventure, to much older adult magician writing a history about magic and its costs. She makes numerous mistakes during the course of the novel, enchanted by the people and atmosphere of the magical world, and her awakening to the injustices running deep in this world, though slow to come, does arrive and strongly motivates her to find a better way.
The book is lovely, full of sublime writing, and I totally, totally loved this book.
Thank you to Netgalley and to Redhook Books for this ARC in exchange for my review.
Clover Hill is a farmgirl, and desperate to leave home. After her brother Matthew returns irreparably damaged by his experiences in WWI, including barely surviving a faerie curse that everyone knows will eventually kill him, she determines to find a way to break the curse and heal him conclusively. And she'll need magic to do it.
Gaining admission by scholarship to an esteemed and secret magical school named Camford, Clover works hard to catch up to the sons of wealthy, magical families who've been steeped in learning and casting magic since their early years. She's shunned by her peers, who are arrogant and look down on a woman from a working family, and even worse, one who is not from one of the Families who have had magic for generations.
One day, she meets Alden Lennox-Fontaine, who instantly charms and captivates her. He draws her into his small circle of friends: Hero, the only other young woman studying at Camford, and Eddie, a painfully shy young man who wants only to learn about botany, and has been bullied by the various scions also at the academy. Both are from Families, though Eddie is dismissed by his parents for not being "normal", and Hero knows she has to excel or her father will marry her off as fast as possible.
Soon, they're all studying and hanging out together. But Clover feels she has a special bond with Alden, who gradually convinces her to research the magic to open faerie doors, which were closed by agreement after the terrible incident that killed many and which Matthew barely survived.
Alden wants to open one for his own reasons, and Clover closes her eyes to the larger consequences, and cajoles the other two to aid them. They pool their knowledge together and attempt to open a door only enough to attract a fairy so Alden and Clover can make their own bargains with it. Of course, the four badly underestimate their skills and the determination and intentions of the summoned faery, and things go horribly wrong, though Clover does get one thing out of the disastrous night. But, the friendship falls apart and the four go their separate ways.
Years later, a horrifying event awakens Clover to the fact that though she's been ignoring it while building her life as a lecturer at Camden, the mess they left behind them was never going to stay secret. Deciding that they must now face up to their past actions and fix the new, more terrible and deadly mess, she calls on her bond with her Camford clique.
H.G. Parry shows us Clover's path to the magical world, and eventually to adulthood, and builds then tears apart the friendship that is the bedrock of her identity in this world.
Clover has many questions when she first enters Camford, but these are soon put aside with her punishing workload, and her slow entry into magical society. Questions such as: where is Camford located? Why do the Families have a special connection to magic? What caused the disaster at the Amiens battlefield? Why is there such a prohibition against learning about faerie magic? Though these lurk in the background of her thoughts, she quickly pushes them aside instead to revel in all she can learn, and the respect she gets from her three friends.
These questions become pertinent when the friends must come back together to save the magical world. Clover has wilfully blinded herself to the many oddities surrounding her once she's pulled into Alden's circle, and she continues to do so as an adult as she loves Camford too much to jeopardize her position with inquiries. She's totally swayed by her supposed acceptance into magical society, but quickly learns just how illusory that acceptance really is, especially in the face of the privilege, power and entitlement of the Families, and the monstrous foundation upon which everything they hold dear is built.
There are times when I found it painful to listen to how easily Clover dismissed her questions and concerns about the privileges of the Families, and how deliberately she manipulated Eddie, and it takes a shocking incident to strip her of her comfortable life and beliefs. I also wondered how she could be so fooled by Alden's charm, when all I saw was arrogance, a lack of regard for others, and terrific self-absorption, but Clover did fall hard for him, and his interest in her intelligence and curiosity no doubt was a powerful incentive to never look harder at the young man.
I loved the world Parry conjured here, and the writing is wonderful. The characters are well drawn and complicated, and Clover's maturity is wonderfully charted, from teen eager to leave home for adventure, to much older adult magician writing a history about magic and its costs. She makes numerous mistakes during the course of the novel, enchanted by the people and atmosphere of the magical world, and her awakening to the injustices running deep in this world, though slow to come, does arrive and strongly motivates her to find a better way.
The book is lovely, full of sublime writing, and I totally, totally loved this book.
Thank you to Netgalley and to Redhook Books for this ARC in exchange for my review.
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