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quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
”My only talent is lying. Father says it will serve me well.”
Ceridwen Parry has run away with the fairies. But this is not her story.
For Sabrina Parry, life in nineteenth-century Wales is cruel. With her father in prison, it fails to her to protect her family and marry off her sick sister, Ceridwen.
Then Ceridwen vanishes into the eerie woods, and Sabrina is drawn into a beautiful but deadly world of fairies and monsters of old. Soon she realises Fairyland is far more dangerous than she ever expected. So when an annoyingly handsome fairy offers her a deal, Sabrina is forced to accept to save her sister.
But as with all fairy bargains, there is a heavy price. And if Sabrina doesn’t pay with her life, she will surely pay with her freedom.
Or her heart.
It’s 1842 in Wales.
16-year-old Sabrina Parry lives in the small mining village of Llanadwen with her younger sister, Ceridwen and their grandmother. Her father has just been sentenced to 10 years transportation to Australia for his role in a riot after a cave in at the local mine killed 30 men and the mine owner - the wealthy, English Branshaws - refused to pay to retrieve their bodies.
Ceridwen is ill with consumption (the same disease that took their mother a year earlier) so it’s up to Sabrina to be the breadwinner for the family. Her father urged her to seek service at the Branshaws’ mansion but while Sabrina is clever, her fiery temper and tendency to shoot her mouth off frequently get her into trouble and besides, she dreams of something more, something adventurous. She thinks the family would be better off if the beautiful Ceridwen married someone rich who could provide for her and their grandmother.
Ceridwen, however, is less keen and when she disappears one night, Sabrina’s grandmother tells her Ceridwen’s gone to the woods behind their house - woods where those who enter are never seen again and are known to belong to the tylwyth ten or fairies. Sabrina is shocked because she’s always been the one who respected fairies, leaving milk for them outside her house and devouring all the stories she can get of their trickery and lore.
Following Ceridwen into the woods Sabrina learns that fairies are real and very dangerous and also that Ceridwen has been keeping secrets. Savvy enough not to give fairies her real name, she calls herself Habren, but can only see them if they reveal themselves to her, leaving her vulnerable to monsters who would love to kill her. Fortunately she meets the handsome and very annoying fairy prince Neirin who offers her protection, the sight and a way to bring Ceridwen back to Llanadwen but the price he demands is one that may cost Sabrina her life. Still, Sabrina has one advantage over Neirin: as a fairy he has to tell her the truth when asked, whereas she’s a gifted liar who can tell him whatever she wants, and that gift will prove very useful when she embarks on an impossible quest that has killed all who have attempted it …
Anna Fiteni’s debut historical fantasy YA novel is a fresh and welcome take on fairies that couples Welsh folklore with a headstrong main character with motivations of her own beyond romance and settling down. Incorporating elements of time travel (which for the most part paper over some anachronisms) when the inevitable romance develops, Fiteni puts an interesting spin on it that plays with the reader’s expectations and which I thoroughly enjoyed.
As someone who survived the plethora of YA fairy novels during the noughties and teens, I was a little worried about starting this novel. No shade to those who love that type of novel, but I find them quite samey and the romance tends to be shallow insta-love that makes me roll my eyes. Fiteni is clearly familiar with this type of novel and she uses readers expectations to cleverly subvert them in a way that makes the story feel fresh and keeps her characters interesting. I applaud the novel for that alone.
Sabrina is a genuinely complicated and interesting main character. She’s grown up knowing that she’s not as pretty as Ceridwen and that she’s too clever for her own good and during the course of the story, Fiteni shows the resentment she feels towards her sister, especially as she learns that it’s Ceridwen who has the sight and who has been tripping off to see the fairies without telling her. This story is not a rescue mission so much as Sabrina wanting to drag Ceridwen back to make her do something she doesn’t want to do so that Sabrina has a chance to go and live for herself. What elevates it is that part of the story is Sabrina admitting this to herself and still wanting to do it.
Neirin is similarly an interesting take on the traditional fairy prince. Smart, cunning, capricious and selfish, he’s also genuinely fascinated with humans and what it means to be human. As the romance begins to develop the reader can actually see both why Sabrina is attracted to him but also what he sees in the sharp tongued, headstrong human who does not bow and scrape to him and instead calls him out every chance she gets. As such even though romance isn’t really my thing, this did hold my interest and the way that Fiteni concludes it is genuinely something that I would like to see more of in YA fiction.
The plot itself revolves around a quest to find out what is slowly destroying the fairy lands and turning the magical folk into mindless monsters. Again, there is a cleverness here to the way Fiteni takes elements common to YA fairy novels and then subverts them and she has a gift for constructing imagery, especially of the decay that is slowly taking hold and why the fairies are so scared of it. The way Fiteni connects that with other elements that are dropped into the story, including hints of backstory is assured and something that I thoroughly appreciated.
If you’re looking for another reason to check out this book, then Fiteni does a great job of incorporating Welsh history and folklore. I’ve read plenty of fairy books that look to Irish, Scots and English traditions but this is one of the very few I’ve read that expressly draws on Welsh traditions. Fiteni incorporates it in an assured way that works with her plot (I particularly welcomed the Mari Lwyd cameo) and there’s a really nice touch in the way the chapter headings are all in Welsh with an English translation.
If I’m going to be picky then I think the pacing slackens too much at times, I would have liked a smidge more development in the relationship between Sabrina and Ceridwen as Ceridwen is slightly too much of a cipher while the backstory involving Sabrina and Ceridwen’s grandmother did not add as much as it should have done to the story. In addition there were a couple of historical anachronisms in the text, e.g. Neirin refers to Sabrina being saccharin at one point and she doesn’t ask what he means, even though saccharin wouldn’t be invented for another 40 odd years.
That said, none of this was fatal to me and I think it’s all part and parcel of being a debut novel. Fiteni certainly displays a knowledge of this genre of YA fiction and writes in a confident way that makes you reassured that you’re in safe hands. This is a strong debut novel and I very much look forward to reading what Fiteni publishes next.
The Verdict:
Anna Fiteni’s debut historical fantasy YA novel is a fresh and welcome take on fairies that couples Welsh folklore with a headstrong main character with motivations of her own beyond romance and settling down. Incorporating elements of time travel (which for the most part paper over some anachronisms) when the inevitable romance develops, Fiteni puts an interesting spin on it that plays with the reader’s expectations and which I thoroughly enjoyed.
THE WICKED LIES OF HABREN FAIRE was released in the United Kingdom on 28 August 2025. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.
Ceridwen Parry has run away with the fairies. But this is not her story.
For Sabrina Parry, life in nineteenth-century Wales is cruel. With her father in prison, it fails to her to protect her family and marry off her sick sister, Ceridwen.
Then Ceridwen vanishes into the eerie woods, and Sabrina is drawn into a beautiful but deadly world of fairies and monsters of old. Soon she realises Fairyland is far more dangerous than she ever expected. So when an annoyingly handsome fairy offers her a deal, Sabrina is forced to accept to save her sister.
But as with all fairy bargains, there is a heavy price. And if Sabrina doesn’t pay with her life, she will surely pay with her freedom.
Or her heart.
It’s 1842 in Wales.
16-year-old Sabrina Parry lives in the small mining village of Llanadwen with her younger sister, Ceridwen and their grandmother. Her father has just been sentenced to 10 years transportation to Australia for his role in a riot after a cave in at the local mine killed 30 men and the mine owner - the wealthy, English Branshaws - refused to pay to retrieve their bodies.
Ceridwen is ill with consumption (the same disease that took their mother a year earlier) so it’s up to Sabrina to be the breadwinner for the family. Her father urged her to seek service at the Branshaws’ mansion but while Sabrina is clever, her fiery temper and tendency to shoot her mouth off frequently get her into trouble and besides, she dreams of something more, something adventurous. She thinks the family would be better off if the beautiful Ceridwen married someone rich who could provide for her and their grandmother.
Ceridwen, however, is less keen and when she disappears one night, Sabrina’s grandmother tells her Ceridwen’s gone to the woods behind their house - woods where those who enter are never seen again and are known to belong to the tylwyth ten or fairies. Sabrina is shocked because she’s always been the one who respected fairies, leaving milk for them outside her house and devouring all the stories she can get of their trickery and lore.
Following Ceridwen into the woods Sabrina learns that fairies are real and very dangerous and also that Ceridwen has been keeping secrets. Savvy enough not to give fairies her real name, she calls herself Habren, but can only see them if they reveal themselves to her, leaving her vulnerable to monsters who would love to kill her. Fortunately she meets the handsome and very annoying fairy prince Neirin who offers her protection, the sight and a way to bring Ceridwen back to Llanadwen but the price he demands is one that may cost Sabrina her life. Still, Sabrina has one advantage over Neirin: as a fairy he has to tell her the truth when asked, whereas she’s a gifted liar who can tell him whatever she wants, and that gift will prove very useful when she embarks on an impossible quest that has killed all who have attempted it …
Anna Fiteni’s debut historical fantasy YA novel is a fresh and welcome take on fairies that couples Welsh folklore with a headstrong main character with motivations of her own beyond romance and settling down. Incorporating elements of time travel (which for the most part paper over some anachronisms) when the inevitable romance develops, Fiteni puts an interesting spin on it that plays with the reader’s expectations and which I thoroughly enjoyed.
As someone who survived the plethora of YA fairy novels during the noughties and teens, I was a little worried about starting this novel. No shade to those who love that type of novel, but I find them quite samey and the romance tends to be shallow insta-love that makes me roll my eyes. Fiteni is clearly familiar with this type of novel and she uses readers expectations to cleverly subvert them in a way that makes the story feel fresh and keeps her characters interesting. I applaud the novel for that alone.
Sabrina is a genuinely complicated and interesting main character. She’s grown up knowing that she’s not as pretty as Ceridwen and that she’s too clever for her own good and during the course of the story, Fiteni shows the resentment she feels towards her sister, especially as she learns that it’s Ceridwen who has the sight and who has been tripping off to see the fairies without telling her. This story is not a rescue mission so much as Sabrina wanting to drag Ceridwen back to make her do something she doesn’t want to do so that Sabrina has a chance to go and live for herself. What elevates it is that part of the story is Sabrina admitting this to herself and still wanting to do it.
Neirin is similarly an interesting take on the traditional fairy prince. Smart, cunning, capricious and selfish, he’s also genuinely fascinated with humans and what it means to be human. As the romance begins to develop the reader can actually see both why Sabrina is attracted to him but also what he sees in the sharp tongued, headstrong human who does not bow and scrape to him and instead calls him out every chance she gets. As such even though romance isn’t really my thing, this did hold my interest and the way that Fiteni concludes it is genuinely something that I would like to see more of in YA fiction.
The plot itself revolves around a quest to find out what is slowly destroying the fairy lands and turning the magical folk into mindless monsters. Again, there is a cleverness here to the way Fiteni takes elements common to YA fairy novels and then subverts them and she has a gift for constructing imagery, especially of the decay that is slowly taking hold and why the fairies are so scared of it. The way Fiteni connects that with other elements that are dropped into the story, including hints of backstory is assured and something that I thoroughly appreciated.
If you’re looking for another reason to check out this book, then Fiteni does a great job of incorporating Welsh history and folklore. I’ve read plenty of fairy books that look to Irish, Scots and English traditions but this is one of the very few I’ve read that expressly draws on Welsh traditions. Fiteni incorporates it in an assured way that works with her plot (I particularly welcomed the Mari Lwyd cameo) and there’s a really nice touch in the way the chapter headings are all in Welsh with an English translation.
If I’m going to be picky then I think the pacing slackens too much at times, I would have liked a smidge more development in the relationship between Sabrina and Ceridwen as Ceridwen is slightly too much of a cipher while the backstory involving Sabrina and Ceridwen’s grandmother did not add as much as it should have done to the story. In addition there were a couple of historical anachronisms in the text, e.g. Neirin refers to Sabrina being saccharin at one point and she doesn’t ask what he means, even though saccharin wouldn’t be invented for another 40 odd years.
That said, none of this was fatal to me and I think it’s all part and parcel of being a debut novel. Fiteni certainly displays a knowledge of this genre of YA fiction and writes in a confident way that makes you reassured that you’re in safe hands. This is a strong debut novel and I very much look forward to reading what Fiteni publishes next.
The Verdict:
Anna Fiteni’s debut historical fantasy YA novel is a fresh and welcome take on fairies that couples Welsh folklore with a headstrong main character with motivations of her own beyond romance and settling down. Incorporating elements of time travel (which for the most part paper over some anachronisms) when the inevitable romance develops, Fiteni puts an interesting spin on it that plays with the reader’s expectations and which I thoroughly enjoyed.
THE WICKED LIES OF HABREN FAIRE was released in the United Kingdom on 28 August 2025. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.
