Meaghan Chase has always been haunted by her father's disappearance when she was a child. Now, at seventeen, she feels isolated, forgotten by her mother and stepfather in the wake of her precious half-brother Ethan's presence, and, after a disasterous attempt at confessing her feelings, dealing with a ticked-off jock out to make her life miserable. 
 But of course, when you think your life is at an ultimate low, fate has to make things interesting by making it all hit the proverbial fan. 
 In a twist of fate reminiscent of Labrinyth, Ethan is spirited away and replaced with a creature with a hunger for carnage. Meaghan's only friend turns out to be one of the most famous fairies in the history of literature. And, of course, there's a dark-hearted boy whose idea of courtship is constant death threats. 
 All in the life of an undiscovered faerie princess, right? 
 I have to give Julie Kagawa props: going on the same idea as Lesley Livingston's Wonderous Strange - which I love - (daughter of the fairy king, Puck as her guardian, falling in love with a faery boy she's not supposed to have), she churned out an unbelievably real, albeit dark and frightening, world that you could just see playing out on the big screen from the hands of Johnny Depp and Tim Burton. 
 There are gnomes. There are trolls. There are fast chase scenes and gruesome deaths. This is definitely not a book meant for younger readers. If you feel the same way, I'd really recommend Wonderous Strange - a little less intense, and still an awesome storyline. 
 That being said, The Iron King still needs recognition for proving that even if an idea might have already been done, you can still add your own touch with the right imagination and, in this case, the right amount of Gothic horror to keep the storyline going.