The Court of Five Thrones

The Fae Tales Verse #3

by Pia Foxhall

Gwyn ap Nudd - newly crowned King of the Unseelie Kingdom - is saddled with a broken Court, not knowing who he can trust, while the bright Seelie Court bears down upon them, seeking to depower the Unseelie Kingdom once and for all. His lover and Advisor, waterhorse Augus Each Uisge, is unloved by many, fielding multiple assassination attempts. Drifting away from each other as life threatens to completely fracture the tenuous connection they have, they must both find allies and a way to survive in a world of fae fraught with chaos.

While officially the sequel to Game Theory, this has hopefully been written in a way to allow newcomers entry into the Fae Tales Verse with minimal pre-reading necessary.
Cover art: Anna Sikorska
Words:450405 complete

Genres: BDSM, Fantasy, M M Romance, Romance, Dark, Fae, LGBT

1353 pages, ebook

First published September 4, 2015

About the author

Pronouns: They/them

Aka not_poignant
http://not-poignant.tumblr.com/
http://archiveofourown.org/users/not_...
http://archiveofourown.org/users/thes...

NEWSLETTER: http://eepurl.com/dJsDhQ

Reviews

[Claudie ☾ · Rating 5 out of 5]

2nd read: August 2022

This was supposed to be a quick, skimming reread — HA! 🤣 — just to help me get back into this universe before rereading the two (sequel) IP books, and starting the third which is finally (💃!!) complete. Instead, here I am, a week later, having read every single one of those 450k+ words — some paragraphs more than once — and feeling just as emotional as I did the first time around.

Guess I underestimated the power this series, and these characters in particular, have over me.

This is ‘adult fantasy romance,’ but Pia Foxhall also used another term to describe the stories set in their expansive Fae Tales universe: ‘trauma recovery fiction.’ I couldn’t agree more. If you’re looking for something light, fluffy, and easy, steer clear, because this is NOT it. It’s a long, bumpy road, and it will HURT before it gets better — but it’s so freaking worth it in the end.

It’s heavy on character development, with special focus on the MCs’ psyche, their individual PTSDs and the recovery process. It’s also kinky AF, and has what Pia calls ‘transformative kink’ —which is really fucking far from the ‘magic dick’ trope, in case you were thinking that — which is probably not the average person's idea of fun, but what do you know, it’s mine. 🤷‍♀️

***

1st read: July 2021

I can’t believe it’s over! 1300+ pages, but it went by in a blink. 😭

Even though I loved Game Theory, I freely admit that some things still bothered me there (but I talked about that in my review, so I’m not gonna repeat myself).

Guess what, none of those carried over to The Court of Five Thrones. Instead, all the things I freaking LOVED in Game Theory were amped up to the nth degree.

➣ The development of Gwyn and Augus’ relationship, as well as their individual personal growth, was just incredible here, and truly the best part of the story for me (I’ve always been a character-oriented gal). They both managed to confront their demons, and became so much stronger (but almost destroyed me with the feels! 💔)

➣ The worldbuilding reached a completely new level, the Unseelie Court had been crafted in such loving detail I felt like I’d been transported there. The Winter Court and the Wild Hunt were simply magical.

➣ The plot — since it’d started to emerge in Game Theory, it didn’t slow down for a moment; some things happening here were predictable (or should I just say, um, highly anticipated), some were completely unforeseen, and some left me reeling! 😵‍💫

➣ The supporting characters were every bit as well-crafted as the main couple, they had their own problems, hopes and plans (for good or ill); I especially liked Ash’s characterization (duh!), but Gulvi was awesome, too. I loved the mutual protectiveness of Ash and Augus, as well as the new friendships — Augus and Fenwrel, Gulvi and Gwyn, Gwyn and poor Mikkel…

And that epilogue?! It was EVERYTHING. There’s nothing like knowing that the characters you came to care about over approximately 2,5k pages (and who’d gone through so much shit in their lives!) got their well-deserved HEA (or should I say HFN?). Which was unexpectedly sweet and heart-warming. SCORE! ❤️

Aaahh this whole series put through me the emotional wringer, but I loved it so much. 😭

I highly recommend this series, but only if you DO NOT mind the tags. They're there for a reason. READ THEM.

[Gabi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book f*** hurt.
The beginning was so imbalanced. Gwyn and Augus couldn't find their place in the Court or with each other. Everything was so off-kilter and it was sooo good. It showed how much these two hurt inside, didn't know what to do with themselves, how to fix everything, how to adapt to the changes.

And then slowly they started to heal, and found answers; and it showed in the overall tone of the book. I felt the "normal" order of things restored. Augus and Gwyn became more attuned to each other.

But there were a lot of setbacks. Self-sabotage is an accurate word to describe literally every character in the book. X)
The characterization is top-notch. If I look back where Augus and Gwyn started and where are they now, I can't believe how much they've grown.

There was considerably less sex but just as kinky as before; and way more tender moments. :)

The way things were left at the end of the previous book, I expected more action here. But I gotta say, fae really do take their time. There were battles, but there was more planning, and scheming than actual doing.
I liked that the author didn't put the main characters on a pedestal. No heroes in this book... well, maybe one.

Having read this book, I no longer think it is necessary to read the Rise of The Guardians series in order to get some background info, especially since I deducted that series might not end with a HEA, I can't be sure of course, but I think it is a possibility. We get a few flashbacks here that shed some light on what happened in the past, and I have a pretty clear picture now.

I'd like to think of this pair of books as an origin story for Gwyn and Augus, and it is an excellent one.

[Trefoil · Rating 5 out of 5]

Edit April 2024 first reread. This is still so good 😭 I love these characters too much.
‐‐------------

This was soooo good. I didn't think it could be better than Game Theory, but I was certainly proved wrong, The Court of Five Thrones was a lot better.

The characters and their development was something I really enjoyed in this book. I enjoyed learning more about this world and fae in general. This series has so much potential, and I feel like the author can write several more books that take place in this world. There certainly is still a lot of mystery around the different types of fae, the classless fae, etc.

Augus and Gwyn..this book definitely took my heart on a roller coaster!! Especially with Mikkel, Crielle, Mafuydd, and other characters. I was just like daaamn. The rest of the characters too, I was interested in everyone really. The ending is HEA, and left me feeling content.

There were a few times where I thought Ash needs his own book or series!! The more I learn about him..I don't know, he seems mysterious and I'm definitely curious to know more about him, things from his perspective and point of view.

I'm going to be re-reading The Ice Plague series now, since the author started updating the chapters for the third book a few days ago and is going to be updating every two weeks.

[Dreamer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, just finished this epic sequel to 'Game Theory.' A beautifully crafted bdsm story featuring the damaged fae pairing of King Gwyn ap Nudd and his lover Augus Each Uisge. The quality of the writing excels many m/m romance published works and this is for free on AO3.

"You're a mess. I suppose we both are," Augus said quietly. "You kill things like you expect to die. Has it always been like that? All that brilliance hiding all that need to seek an end?"
Gwyn was too tired to lie.
"Always," he mumbled. "I tried to get killed on my first battle."

[Ayanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

So yeah, I'm (again) rereading this, but this time it's because the author's writing a canon extra and idk it rewoke my Thirst (TM) for these two.

(removed section)

5/21/2016
There are some typos, etc here and there, but it's not very intrusive. I think the most intrusive thing was actually when characters would speak more...human-y, I think is the intent? All of the "like"'s and stuff. I wonder if it's because they weren't offset with commas. I wonder if that would have helped. Eh, but either way, it wasn't a huge huge issue for me I sort of just rolled with it, even if it took me a moment sometimes to re-orient myself.

I actually am interested in most, if not all of the main cast. I find usually with these ensemble things - honestly, sometimes, even with couple things - I end up with some bias one way or another, but the author's managed to hit a good balance. Okay honestly I maybe do slightly favor Gwyn more because I am such a sucker for the whumpable characters, but Augus has his complexities, too, and is rather whumpable in his own way. His is more subtle but he does hit some of my buttons too. But I do like the way author balances it out. Too often when authors try to go for two whumpable characters it just ends up being annoying melodrama all around. But author infuses these characters with a good amount of self-awareness, and where there's...like character-blindness/self-blindness, it's believable. It's constructed bottom-up instead of top-down, so it all works. I maybe sometimes wish they would not because god, can the universe not just give them a break, but I find it believable.

But each is also so strong, and whump in conjunction to D/s can be a hard dynamic to manage - the "recovery" and 'what each needs to recover' can end up too heavy-handed, and therefore rather contrived - but I think this author manages it. Not that that sort is bad, but I just feel like I've seen so much of it, and it get rather heavy-handed rather quickly and wouldn't have at all fit within these character dynamics.

Also, god, author doesn't shit on psych's. Do you know how amazing that is? It's distressingly popular to vilify psychological professionals, but this author doesn't :') what an absolute miracle :')

Frankly, I got a bit bored towards the end. It just got a bit tedious. To be fair, I'd read them in rather quick succession, which might have something to do with it? Maybe it's just I'd already had my sense of closure re: the character arcs a bit earlier, so this written out closure was a bit...what was it Mikkel was saying, about what's more tedious than predicting everything is seeing it played out anyway? But that's just me and I do not hold that as a mark against this series.

Regarding the end note...
I'll admit I'm disappointed Gwyn and Augus aren't going to be center stage in the planned sequel, but it's actually a very prudent decision. I'd actually been thinking on the fact that there'd be a sequel, before I remembered the author said it was going to center on different characters, and feeling like it could go pear-shaped rather easily. Gwyn and Augus' giant convoluted character arcs that have been building up have already been resolved, and anything going forward is just gravy, in a sense. (It was like in Artemis Fowl; I still hold Opal Deception should have been the last one, since Artemis' character arc had been resolved. The rest of the books after just...weren't the same, didn't quite have the same spark, not for me anyway.) It's possible to go forward from there, theoretically, but I feel like it's very difficult. There's not really a clean way to do so; you can either revisit prior character arcs, which can come off as bad writing, or you can try to move forward with the new character - but people have already fallen in love with the old character, and will be looking for that. Book breaks are hard things to manage, especially with character development, and I feel like from what I see, it's easy to fall back into familiar patterns instead of pushing them.

Ramble aside, part of me does indeed want Gwyn and Augus center stage everything, because I'm greedy like that, but I think, especially given the tumultuous nature of each's character arcs and how rather involved each was, it might be better to let this natural stopping point BE the stopping point. (Which...is interesting. Oh my god this is so off-topic, but I've observed books that felt like books/stories, in that there felt like there were natural stopping points which I'd be content for the story to end. I can only remember one series off the top of my head where it felt like the characters could be written ad infinitum, that they and the world were constructed in such a way that there was always conflict, but not conflict constructed in the way they teach you in middle school with the plot diagram. It felt organic, somehow, like you were reading memoirs, and it was conceivable that the characters' lives extended beyond the book, and were just as interesting as what was in the book. Which isn't to say stories like this, that feel more discrete, aren't as well-written. It's just an interesting distinction that I've noticed and wonder about.)

I just hope I love the new characters, since that tends to be a sticking point with cast changes in series.
^on that note, I think there actually wasn't a single character I wasn't interested in. That also tends to be a sticking point for me regarding ensemble casts. I sometimes end up favoring one character and ignoring everything else because the other characters didn't really speak to me.

One more thing that I only just thought about. You know, for all that author labels these fics "id fics," I don't actually feel like it's accurate? Yeah, there's shit you wouldn't want to do irl, in the realm of RACK, but like...well, it's fantasy, and these are non-human characters, and the characterization and plot are fleshed out so it's not just like gratuitous pwp/tortureporn/whatever. I'd even go so far as to say that I've probably read pubbed stuff, back in the day before the internet became a huge thing and you had to go to the library and make do with the sad 2 aisles of sci-fi/fantasy stuff. The writing quality's not low, either; it's all quite well done. I actually...feel like this might be the epic Seelie/Unseelie m/m fic/series I've been waiting for my whole life, after reading Tithe by Holly Black and Summer Knight by Jim Butcher. (well... now that that dream's been realized, what now?) It just hits so many points for me, and it's got the lore, too, which is what I always wanted, and it's got the lush masquerade scene(s) that tips into like fairy tale for me (probably because it reminded me a bit of Megan Derr, who really likes to write descriptions of like clothing, or jewelry, or perfumes, which were so idiosyncratic and I never expected, but I really took a shine to). Like, the last story I tried that supposedly was this (I think the author commented when they saw my note in the review part before I read it, of what I hoped it would be) I ended up disliking because it was too...standard m/m fare; barely there characterization, gratuitous tropification 0f characters, barely-there lore, though maybe it would have been there if I'd gotten deeper.
Edit: Thought about it some more and okay maybe there is some element of id fic to this (like "oh man can we pls get more compulsion sex? That was actually kind of intriguing ya know" *sees myself out the door*)

I mean it got a bit samey-samey for me towards the end, but again, I read the whole series in rather close succession so I'm not blaming the series, but the more I think on it, the more I feel like this is very close to what I'd been searching for ever since I discovered M/M as a "genre," like my fairy-tale/fantasy Sidhe lore epic. Dang, now I really want more and more of it.

[aspeccharactersoftheday]

https://aspeccharactersoftheday.tumbl...

[Miriam · Rating 5 out of 5]

For me, this was the best installment in the Fae Tales Verse universe. From Gwyn and Augus's first meeting in Deeper into the Woods to their later altercation and slow-building romance in Game Theory up to when it all finally culminates in a very intense, very satisfying finale in The Court of Five Thrones.

This is clearly something that should be paid for. I'm so confused as to why this is free but I've never felt more lucky than this. Seriously. The writing is of high quality. The twists come when you least expect them to - as do the betrayals. Seriously, my heart still aches for Mikken The characters are fleshed out so thoroughly that I felt myself wincing everytime something bad happen to them - as if they existed in real life. Which they could! We don't know and besides, rumours have to start somewhere.

Again, why isn't this published?!?! I may be a broke college student but I genuinely want to throw money at this fic for being so damn amazing. It may have been like a thousand pages long but the journey was worth it.

5 mindblowing stars

The link to the story can be found right here. Go check it out!

[Tiferet · Rating 5 out of 5]

In a way I can't believe I'm writing these words right now, because it means the book is finished, and so is the incredible journey I went on with these characters so many chapters ago. I'm eternally grateful to Pia Foxhall for creating this world and all the wonderful fae that inhabit it, for shaping the intricate history, lore and mythology of the fae realm. The incredibly sexy bits didn't hurt either :)

This is a long, sometimes emotionally exhausting book, very dark at times, but it's also full of hope, and of faith that love can, indeed, conquer the obstacles and heal souls, and it's founded on a belief that we're so much stronger than we give ourselves credit for, and that the fight for ourselves, for our happiness, is worth the pain.

[Fangtasia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Argh!!!

Took me forever to read it because it gets reeeeeaaaaally draggy there for most of it, and then I realize what I thought was the end...is not...

It is still a WIP!

*cries bitterly*

[M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pia is one of the most masterful writers I have ever come across. When it comes to character development and situations you think can never be resolved, Pia takes you on a whirlwind journey, with unexpected turns. She whips your emotions around, going from sweet warmth and stolen tender moments, to getting you to cry as your heart breaks for her characters and their tragedies. If you think you can tell what is going to happen in the story, I'm sorry but you'll likely guess wrong, and realize how obvious the set-up was in hindsight but still, you could have never predicted the outcome.

When you come across books in this genre, you might often expect a shallowness to the characters and plot, and mainly read for the intimate scenes. Not with Pia's work. Those are just icing on the cake. Sometimes I would skim the intimate scenes because I was so anxious to get going with the plot, but even that was a mistake because much of the character development came when the characters were forced to confront themselves in a situation where they couldn't hide from there partner.

This book, and all in the series, aren't for people who only want tender, kind moments. They are for people who want to really feel their characters emotions, at their very best and at there very worst. I'm sad the next book in the series will be focusing on 2 other characters we haven't met yet, but excited as well to go through the journey of discovery all over again.

[˜☂﴿⋆☁ Head in the Clouds ☁⋆﴾☂˜ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gwyn: August will tire of me eventually, I'm a horrible person, but I'll enjoy it while it lasts.

August: *making wedding plans*

[Sun · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic book about why everyone deserves therapy, how healthy relationships require some level of forgiveness, how hard forgiveness is, and both the sexy and unsexy kinds of masochism.

[nana · Rating 5 out of 5]

as of March 2023, the most beautiful love story I've ever read, and if it turns out to be the most beautiful love story I'll ever read, that would be just perfect

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.4

[Claire Lala · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing. Simply amazing. All that plot build. Wow!!!

[coflo · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.8 stars. Gwyn and Augus have to save the Unseelie Court from being disrupted by the Seelie Court, Gwyn's mother's and some Mages' schemes. At the same time, they have to face their past--Gwyn's tortured childhood and Augus's being set up by Nightingale and the Raven King. They have their weakness, but I love their dynamic relationship and the way they seamlessly complement each other.

[April · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly epic. One of my definite 'on a desert island' reads!