Heart Of the Moors Book Review

As you may have guessed, today I will be reviewing Heart of the Moors by Holly Black. This is a fantasy retelling of a classic Disney villain Maleficent.

When we flushed out her story in the movie Maleficent, we had seen a side of her that made her story line more understandable. Not just for her but other characters as well: King Stephan, the Queen, Diaval (the raven).

In a way, it creates a better narrative for Aurora as well. In the Disney animation, we see her as a one dimensional character that is passive. She has things happening to and around her rather than having a hand in choosing what she wants to do for herself.

Holly Black creatively continued the tale in her own way with the intention of giving the same amount of depth as that of the movie. Spoiler alert: she delivers brilliantly!

Summary.

We are reintroduced to the Kingdom of Perceforest and the Moors with our main protagonist Queen Aurora waking up. We follow her as she is battling with the knowledge of what she knows to be true of the Moors and her loyalty to a kingdom that has been through a lot in the last years of her father's reign.

He had descended into madness, thereby leaving his position to be taken over by those who advised him. As we all know, when we are put in a position of influence and have had all of the perks as such, we do not take kindly to having it be taken away or changing.

We are shown the friendship of both Aurora and Phillip as they had been through the entire curse together and both had been privy to the events surrounding that. Both have a complex series of thoughts and challenges as they navigate their way from friends to eventual lovers.

While they are both figuring out the dynamic there is a conniving plot going on behind the scenes to get rid of the new queen with differing ideals than that of their recent predecessor.

Meanwhile, in the Moors, Maleficent is waiting and watching for the humans to mess up and Aurora to want to come back to the Moors. She believes that Aurora is too trustful and kind.

Aurora is warring with so much in this book and it is good to see her battle her inner demons. She remain true to her character as trusting and kind, however, she has reached her mental limit as she realizes that it is harder for others to see the Moor's inhabitants as anything more than monsters and evil creatures and vice versa.

Reaching the end of peaceful negotiations she takes it upon herself to form a treaty that will benefit both sides. She talks to both commoners and Fairfolk alike and asks them to agree to one day of peace. A day of celebration was to be had.

Almost all were for this. Very few in her own counsel were not. They did not trust the new Queen and thought she would be easy to manipulate so that they could remain in power and therefore have the monetary benefit.

One the day of the festival where the treaty is to be signed was when the plot to overthrow the treaty, thereby Queen Aurora's perceived inability to rule, was to take place.

Maleficent, perceptive as ever, starts to find out what is happening, in the midst of that gets herself, Phillip, and Diaval captured. Diaval manages to escape and warns Aurora. Aurora races off to find them and in so doing saves them.

Of course with all good fairy tales there was a happy ending.

Rating.

5/5 stars!

Overall, it was targeted more towards a younger audience. The entire story line with our antagonists were rather predictable, but there were certain nuances that kept you on the edge of your seat.

The characters themselves were complex, ambiguous, and multi-dimensional rather than just flat and stereotypical.

I love that we followed Aurora and got more out of her character than just flat and passive. She took charge of her life, made her own decisions, proved to those around her that she was determined, motivated, and would be a better leader than her predecessors and usher in a new era of peace.

I loved that when we followed Maleficent she wasstill morally ambiguous, at times frustrating, and remained with a war of emotions.

With Prince Phillip, I loved that he was not perfect, he had misconceptions of the Fairfolk, and grew more believably from friends to lovers with Aurora and that it did take as long as it did for them.

We also got to see some of Diaval and his thoughts to both Aurora and Maleficent. It was beautiful to watch other minor characters get a spotlight as well and their intentions for the story were made known.

I would definitely recommend this to readers of all ages and if you would like a copy of your very own Heart of the Moors just click the title.

As always thank you so much for your time in reading my work, it has been so much fun to read all these books and share them with you! If you want to follow more of my bookish journey I have a YouTube channel (Kiowa Reads) and of course an Instagram (babbling_bumbling_booknerd).