"Touch her, and I'll freeze your testicles off and put them in a jar. Understand?" -Ash

So, I'm only a little behind on my posts. Especially my Gilmore Girls challenge. On my other blogs I'm on day 19, but I'll post them as quickly as possible. I don't want to post them all in one day because that would just be a bit too much, I feel. I finally finished The Iron Daughter by Julie Kagawa. I have to say, I really loved it. I'm having a lot of trouble deciding who I like more for Meghan, Puck or Ash..

SPOILERS!!!

Puck is her best friend. The person who has been there for her for years, watching her, making sure she is safe and keeping the faery world from her (all under Oberon's orders), a Summer faery. And then he fell for her. He fell madly in love with her, and I'm sure he never thought in a million years that she would fall for his archenemy of the Winter Court, Ash (who happens to be a very handsome prince). And even so, he still watched over her through everything. He defied the King's orders and followed her on her journey for the Sceptor, risking his own life to keep her safe..

And then there's Ash. The Winter prince who is dark, mysterious, snarky, sarcastic, and who is madly in love with her. Who defied his Queen, his mother, to be with her. Who saved her from being frozen for eternity. Who fought his own brother to keep her alive. And even when an Iron fey bugged him to make him under her control, he still found a way back to Meghan (with her help of course). And in the end, he even let himself be exiled from the Nevernever to follow her into the Mortal world to be with her forever, even though it would slowly kill him and eventually, he would cease to exist. He risked literally everything: his family, his kingdom, his throne, his existence, all so that he could be with her. And who doesn't want that?

And now I am in the middle of reading The Iron Queen, the next book in the series and I'm loving it as well. Once again they're on an epic adventure, only this time, the fate of the whole Nevernever is in Meghan's hands. And who is right there with her as usual? Why, Ash and Puck of course! And the entire Nevernever is counting on her. The Summer and Winter courts are (somewhat) working together to save their precious Kingdoms, and yet every time the Iron Fey attack, they lose a little more land to the Iron Kingdom. So what will Meghan do to save the Nevernever? A world that she's grown to love. A world that has half of her family, and two of the people that she loves most. And why is she having mysterious dreams about Machina, the last Iron King, the one true Iron King? Why is the Iron Kingdom calling her to it? Will she be able to use her glamour, whether Iron or Summer, again without getting violently ill? And if it comes down to a matter of one or the other, which will she choose? And who will she end up with in the end, Puck or Ash? Will the Summer and Winter courts ever learn to coexist peacefully, and without confrontation?

So many questions to be answered.. And there's still one more book left after this one: The Iron Knight (which unfortunately isn't even out yet!). So I will probably have to wait for the answers to most of these questions. I am hoping that at least some of them will be answered by the end of this book, but I'm willing to bet that the end of The Iron Queen will leave a lot more questions than it will answer.

And so I will have to wait. The release date for The Iron Knight, according to juliekagawa.blogspot.com, is for October 25, 2011. I'm hoping that is correct!