All That Glows by Ryan Graudin (review)

As a Frithemaeg, or faery guardian, Emrys has watched over the kings and queens of Britain since the time of King Arthur, so she’s well aware of the antics that royals get can up to. Unfortunately, she’s finding her latest assignment to look after Prince Richard, the handsome, hard-partying heir to the throne, especially difficult—not because of the late nights at the pub, but because for some reason, Emrys’ cloaking spell fails around Richard and she’s forced to reveal herself to him, a faery guard no-no that could get her banished. Complicating matters further is the sudden uptick in attacks on the royals, with Banshees and Green Women lurking around every corner, ready and willing to suck the life out of Richard in an attempt to disrupt the royal line. Multiple action sequences and plenty of dialogue make the 400+ pages here breeze by quite easily, and readers who can overlook more than a few contrivances (the most obvious being the magic failure’s being limited to this particular spell and this particular king’s presence) may find this a pleasing romantic adventure that manages to be dramatic without being too serious. The look at both the faery world and the history of England is cursory, but Graudin does mine familiar folklore to make several terrifying villains (the Banshee is particularly disturbing). Both Richard and Emrys are fairly shallow characters, but their inevitable relationship is genuinely sweet and tender, with an innocence that may appeal to younger teens who prefer the romance and magic of Camelot over the actual mythology.