Midnight Never Come (Onyx Court 1)

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The moral court is the court of Queen Elizabeth I of England. At the start of the story Elizabeth is her prime as monarch. Her kingdom is secure thanks to the defeat of the Spanish Armada, but she is plagued by the recent execution of her cousin Queen Mary of Scotland. She feels “managed” by another and dislikes it. I really wanted to adore this one, because it combines two of my all time favourite things - faeries and Tudors! And while I did like it, I didn't love it quite as much as I was hoping to, which is kind of disappointing, because there needs to be more fantasy-tudor books! Just...I need them. But this was quite different from what I had thought it might be like, and although I did think it had a stunning premise, I found it a little hard to connect with the story. I wanted to fall in love with characters and rave about this book, and I tried so hard to do that, but it just wasn't happening. However I do really enjoy reading about this era of history, so I very much enjoyed the blend of historical fiction and fantasy. The way they threaded together was absolutely a highlight of this novel. There's definitely more of a focus on the fictional queen, but the morsels of history made the whole thing feel more real, and lent that serious tone that this slightly dark fantasy needed.

I don't even know what to say about Galen, the Prince of the Stone. He falls in love with Lune, the Queen of the Onyx Court, after seeing her only once, and stays in love for five years. He knows, or should know, that she will never choose to fall in love with him, as she would have to, but he continues to think that if he sacrifices enough for the Onyx Court, she might fall in love with him, which does not happen to fae. He trusts Dr. Andrews to help the fae even after Andrews cuts out the heart of a salamander while it is alive. He wants to be the Prince, but he never quite manages to fulfill his responsibilities until he gives his own life for London We meet some new characters and see the return of others. Lune is immortal but Deven is mortal and can not live forever. Instead Lune has chosen a new Prince of Stone, a mortal to help rule at her side. Anthony’s role is more than ceremonial. He’s Lune’s connection with the mortal world and it’s a connection that works both ways. He needs the fae in the real world as well. England flourishes under the hand of its Virgin Queen: Elizabeth, Gloriana, last and most powerful of the Tudor monarchs.Some great touches are explored like Queen Lune and the long shadow of the Queen she replaced in Midnight Never Come and those events lingering influence over Lunes decisions. A Star Shall Fall is the third book in Marie Brena's Onyx Court series, which follows a fairy queen's reign and how it impacts (and is impacted) by the history of England. Taking place in the mid 1700s, A Star Shall Fall is highly concerned with the dragon that was banished during In Ashes Lie. When faerie methods alone cannot stop the dragon, the court turns to the great thinkers of the Royal Society to try to find a solution. My least favorite of the Onyx Court books. I really liked the premise of this book, that of visiting the darker, seedier underside of both London and the Onyx Court, but I felt that the book fell flat. I was also surprised by how much swearing was in this book, because there is quite a lot, and I don't remember any in the previous books.

Anyone who knows their British history knows that Charles I was tried and executed by his own parliament, something that had no precedent and has never happened since. It was a corrupted parliament with no authority, but it served its purpose and a brief Commonwealth and military rule led by Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector, followed. (Despite what the book's blurb says, the political upheaval etc. didn't occur in 1666.)Brennan’s mastery of mixing history with her faerie world was tested in Midnight Never Come. But as important as the history was Brennan was free their to build a love story around the events without the being tied too strongly to fixed dates and events. The protagonists of the tale are Lune, who hopes to better her precarious position within the cut-throat politics of Invididana’s “Onyx Court” by accepting an assignment to disguise herself as a mortal and spy on the humans, and Michael Deven, a young Englishman whose family has recently been elevated to the gentry, and whose ambitions lead him to work for Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth’s spymaster. It is inevitable, of course, that these two should meet, and that their agendas should clash over developing events The difference is that Lune knows most of what is afoot, and for much of the book Michael is ignorant. However, once he is assigned to uncover a suspected secret influence on the queen, it is not in his nature to leave any possibilities unexplored. The author's voice is strong and eloquent, her sentences flowing in their complexity. What astounded me is Marie Brennan's ability to slightly change her style when describing the mortal and the Onyx Court from light and inspired to creepy and intense. The pace is crisp and there are quite a few unexpected twists and turns to whet your appetite for the final countdown. As this series has developed there has been change in both worlds, though it is perhaps the human world that has changed most. After the removal of four-fifths of London in the Great Fire, it is here that we begin to see the reconstruction and urbanisation that leads to the historic elements of London today. There is also the social reconstruction after the debacle of the English Civil War. London here is a growing, thriving centre of commerce as well as ideas.