A Wonderful collection of fantasy short stories! I am also super impressed with the cover art on this book as well. I really would like full length novels of each of these stories now!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book.

First of all, I need to compliment the gorgeous cover. Beautifully done.

This collection of fey short stories was a mixed bag for me. The choice to use the words “indigenous” and “native” to describe the fey throughout seemed questionable.

I didn’t care for the first story since I never got enough sense of who the characters were to become invested in the exposition being shared. Epistolary tales are hard to pull off unless the characters are extremely engaging, like in Sorcery and Cecelia or Dracula.

The second story about an adventurous elvish princess was much more my style, although I still felt like the characterizations only scratched the surface. Asha’s main obstacle to adventuring was immediately overcome and she met the love of her life right away, so it was unclear what else the princess wanted. I did find Scourge endearing though. The story might have been stronger if it’d spanned less time, focused on fewer characters, developed those characters more, and clarified some details. For example, I was confused about why they attacked a dragon that seemed to be minding its own business in the sewers and why Traci teleported without taking Asha with her when she was having trouble swinging from vines. The story also continued past the closure point where I’d initially assumed it’d ended.

The third story is about an Orc who wants to defy expectations by being a hero. While I love that premise—I’m a huge fan of Legends & Lattes—I didn’t connect with any of the characters. They just fell flat for me. Also, the goal of adventuring seemed too similar to the princess story. Perhaps it might’ve been more interesting told from the POV of Gin, the goblin musician. After a couple of months of struggling to get through the final story, despite it never really capturing my interest, I finally gave up and DNF at 68%.

Overall, I appreciate the LGBTQ+ rep and world building, but wish I’d found an emotional connection to the characters.

If you love the fey, want a queerer take on them, and you love world building above all else, this book may be for you.

I received an advanced copy from the publisher and am voluntarily leaving this review.

Tyranny of the Fey: Adventure Waits for No One by Terry Bartley is a short story collection set in the original fantasy world of Galevyn. A famed Elven researcher is worried about her home. When she discovers a new realm with massive magic potential, she believes she has found the answer. Will the Seasonal Fey Courts allow her to continue her research without interference, or do they have more nefarious plans? An Elven princess runs away from her arranged marriage to a parallel world. Will she be able to find the adventure she seeks? While she is in search of battles with dragons and quests to obtain sacred artifacts, she finds that what she was looking for may have been a true connection with someone that understands her. Two childhood friends, an orc and a goblin, have long dreamed of adventure. When a magic school dropout stumbles into their lives, they jump at the chance to realize their ambitions. This found family realizes the world of Galevyn is a much bigger place than the jungle they grew up in.

Tyranny of the Fey is an entertaining collection of short stories. There is just enough world and character building to keep the reader from feeling lost without getting them bogged down in the magic theory and history of the world. There was a little bit of everything in the collection, friendship, adventure, romance, grief, and more. I do have to admit that I thought this book was part of a series I had already started when I requested it, mainly because of the cover art, which left me a little confused in the beginning, but the story still entertained me. I would have liked some more of a solid connection between the short stories, since there were the stories with different sets of characters all in the same world- there could have been a bit more of a thread tying them together. I would have really enjoyed that kind of connection between the sets of characters. I would have also liked to see the final set of stories end with something of a conclusion that did not leave me sad that I turned the page to find the acknowledgements rather than a last chapter to wrap things up a bit.

This was a mixed bag. From the title and the first chapter you would think it would be about the fey exploiting another plane for their advantage. But it really takes place after the fey have been overthrown and while there are some fey still around they are the ones that have to be worried...

It is a bunch of short stories about side characters from the main series (which I haven't read). I enjoyed the characters and their growth but a lot of times the action is cut short to get to the aftermath. I would have liked to see more of the action.

I enjoyed this enough that I would check out the main series.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest opinion.

Thank you for giving me this book as a arc to honestly review. Tyranny of the Fey is a set of three short stories that follows different characters and events in the world of Galevyn. I really enjoyed the formatting of the first story and found it to be super unique in that it was told in the form of formal letters. The second story was definitely my favorite as I really enjoyed reading about the main character Asha, a princess who has escaped her fate of being betrothed to another and goes on an adventure in the material realm. The time jumps in this story were a little hard to follow, but overall I really enjoyed the story. The last is a coming of age type of story about two childhood friends, one an orc and the other a goblin who leave on an adventure to explore the world. I liked that this story emphasizes the importance of friendship ! I really appreciated the real life issues that this set of stories addresses such as racism and gender roles. I also found the LGBT representation to be excellent. Overall I would recommend this book to the younger adolescent age demographic specifically but I think anyone who enjoys reading fantasy’s would enjoy these stories !

Tyranny of the Fey is an okay book. I read it and while I did not fall in love with it. I did enjoy the book it is written in chunks of short stories. Many of which I wish had been lengthened out as the brief description of this tales would have been interesting.

So while I enjoyed reading the book I was left wishes for more details, as is sometimes the price for reading a book filled with short tales.

I received a copy of the book, in exchange for an honest review.

Unfortunately I DNF at 40%-I was confused and uninterested in the stories and the characters weren’t distinct enough for me to get invested in their journey.

"Tyranny of the Fey" is a collection of three short stories, set in the world of Galevyn.

In the first story, we follow Rowena, a scientist, through what is essentially the colonialization of Galevyn. The story is told through letters that Rowena writes, which was an interesting concept that I liked the idea of. However, I found it quite difficult to get immersed in the story. This might also have to do with the fact that the first story was very short. However, the story does a good job of explaining the background of Galevyn (especially in regard to their relationship with Elven), as this will become important in the next stories as well.
In the second story, we follow Asha, a princess that has escaped an arranged marriage to become an adventurer. This story was a lot easier to read and I found it to be quite cute.
In the third and last story, we follow Karuk and Gin, an orc and a goblin that are childhood friends. They too become adventurers, and so the story revolves around them finding a group to explore with.

As a whole, this is an easy and wholesome read. I feel like this book would be great for children/young teens. The writing fits this age demographic, as it is relatively simple and sometimes seems a little juvenile. The author does a great job of weaving themes of representation, gender roles, racism and LGBTQIA+-representation into the story, making everything seem very natural. I do like that these are wholesome stories, but they explore quite serious topics at the same time. The second story explores grief and the importance of being able to openly talk about said grief. The third (and the second story too) explore the trope of found family whilst building a real connection between characters.
I struggled with the pacing in parts of the book, especially in the second story. Because these are short stories, there is less time to explore the characters and delve deep, so dialogue and story progression sometimes felt a little shallow. The large time jumps (again, mostly in the second story) kicked me out of the story a little.

As a whole, I enjoyed this book! I can recommend it to those looking for an easy, wholesome read that will still deal with social issues. Again, I'd say that the main age range this would work well for are (younger) teens.

This book took me a little while to get through. The stories were cute, but the writing felt a little juvenile. I felt like I was watching middle schoolers role play a DnD game. It jumped around quite a bit also, I didn’t get to really know the characters, they were all just very surface level and agreeable.

Was unable to finish this reading page by page, I ended up skimming. The writing style is not bad, but it feels extremely clunky, expository, dry, and the characters are basic and underwhelming. While the concept of something like this is cool, I greatly dislike epistolary novels when they're weak. The first story in this one was weak. The second and third stories felt flat and underdeveloped, even if the characters were surface-level likeable. It felt like nothing happened even as their stories were resolved and concluded because the action and drama lacked punch. Good and heartfelt representation of LGBTQ themes and elements but not enough substance.

Tyranny of the Fey
Terry Bartley

Tyranny of the Fey is a collection of 3 short novellas following three different characters through the world of Galevyn.

The 3 novellas had potential but unfortunately I struggled with the writing. Much of the writing was very basic and felt out of place for some of the stories.

The first story following Rowena, was a nice and easy read which set the story for the second part of the novella.

The second part of the story, followed Asha (an elf) and her life as an adventurer. As this is a relatively short book there were lots of time jumps which made it a difficult to get into the story and the characters.

However, I will state that the author brings in lots of components such as LQBTQIA+ representation (very naturally), the importance of found family, and the devastation grief can bring if not addressed. It was good to see these touched on in Asha's story.

By the 3rd novella, with the character named Karuk, I was struggling to get through the story. I unfortunately have decided to set it aside for now and I may return to her story in the future.

Ultimately, I enjoyed that it was a quick read but have chosen to move on for now.

Thank you to the Publishers for providing me with an arc copy of this book for an honest review.

I couldn’t finish this book. I wanted to give it a chance because the cover is adorable and it sounds like a lot of fun but the tone and writing style come across middle grade but the subject matter is definitely not. Kudos to the author for the very relaxed LGBTQIA representation. The rest of the big subjects covered in the first 25% of the book were important and I love that, but the author was a little heavy handed with them.

Thanks to Netgalley for giving me this ARC of Tyranny of the Fey.

This is a collection of stories with the first part being about Rowena, an elven researcher, the second being about Asha, an elven princess looking for adventure, and then the thrird being about Karuk and Gin as they explore the world both being outcasts. There are several time jumps that can make it hard to follow where in the story we are. The language is very simple and not what I would expect from a fantasy book like this. Asha once calls someone "My dude" and through me right out the story.

This is an okay quick read not something I would ever read again though. I would have liked a little more character development from all of the characters.

This collection of three novellas has great potential. I was rooting for it; the cover and the story lines were solid but I struggled to get through it. The last story was probably my favorite out of the three but I found myself not being drawn into the stories like I would have liked to be. It felt a slightly bit rushed but maybe it was more about the style of writing that kept me from being able to immerse myself in the journeys.

This book was a tough one to get through. The concept and cover are great. A lot of interesting idea’s in terms of the format of the writing. Ultimately none of it really lands. The book seemed a bit uninspired, the tropes and ideas used just weren’t re-invented or utilized in a satisfying way. The writing shows a lot of promise.

This is a set of three novellas set in the same world following different characters in different situations. Something that binds them together is the sense of adventure that is present throughout. I enjoyed both the shorter novella format and the overall vibe. Even though the stories presented were shorter than a novel I feel like all three stories had a clear direction from start to finish.

This review will be published on my Goodreads-account on August 1st 2023.

Love the cover of this but unfortunately the book wasn't for me, I couldn't get into it and it unfortunately ended up being a DNF

I DNF this book 8% in to it!

This book is in problematic in so many ways. The fact the fey are called indigenous and describe as primitive just before a military group unalives a group of them for hunting for food. Then children are stole and sent to the fey realm....its horrible to use history make it your story line and so yeah would not recommend this book to anyone

This is a series of three novella. The first is very short, a series of letters by the character to give you background into the worlds that the other stories were set in. I enjoyed the information and the way it was presented.

The second was the story of a princess elf who ran away from home to avoid an arranged marriage and the life she lives in the other demission. I feel like the main character was fairly well written but the secondary characters were fairly weakly written. The plot was fairly straight forward.

The third story was about childhood friends, an orc and a goblin who ran away from home to be adventurers and teamed up with other outcasts. I liked this story best.

I'm not the biggest fan of short stories but these are pretty good for what they are.