Life has been hard for Sabrina Parry. Her older sister is the pretty one, the sweet one, the one everyone loves. Sabrina is the difficult one, the exasperating one, the one everyone dislikes. When their father has to leave he gives Sabrina instructions “Keep Ceridwen and Gran safe…and stay out of trouble”. But on the very first night Sabrina picks a fight with the richest man in town and Ceridwin disappears. How will Sabrina save her family now? Find out in The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire by Anna Fiteni.
[Note: While I am reviewing this novel independently and honestly, it should be noted that it has been provided to me by Little, Brown, and Company for the purpose of this review. Warning: My review of The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire contains some spoilers!]
Sabrina wants more than home can offer
Life in the small mining town of Llanadwen, where Sabrina Parry is from, is hard. The men all go to work in the mines, usually when they’re still boys, and they don’t always return. The women all get married and have more children to someday work in the mine. Sabrina feels trapped. She wants to see the world and find out who she really is. But her family needs her so she stays.
When Sabrina was little her father would tell her stories about the tylwyth teg (faires) and Eu Gwald (fairyland). Sabrina is too old to believe in those tales now but she still wants to. So every night she sets out a saucer of milk for the fairies. And every night she tells her sister Ceridwen fairy tales. Her story telling is the one thing that Sabrina feels like she does well. The rest of the time she messes everything up, but when she’s weaving stories they are magical.
Unfortunately, life is going to get even harder for Sabrina. Her father has been sentenced to ten years “transportation” (being shipped to Austraila to work for the government) after inciting a riot against unfair taxation. That leaves her in charge of the family. She hopes that she can marry her sister off to a man with enough money to take care of her. Preferably with enough money to take care of all three of them, although she knows that’s a stretch. Then her sister disappears into the night. Her Gran tells her that Ceridwen has gone to Eu Gwald, just like her sister did so many years ago, and is gone forever. But Sabrina can’t accept that, so she tears off into the night looking for Ceridwen.
Somehow she makes it to Eu Gwald. Sabrina knows all of her father’s fairytales by heart and is certain she can outsmart any fairy she comes across. After all, fairies cannot lie and Sabrina is an excellent liar. How hard can this be? Especially when a fairy prince offers to help her. But things aren’t that simple in Eu Gwald and Sabrina may lose far more than her sister if she isn’t very, very careful.
Sabrina must dig deep for the truth in The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire
Unsurprisingly in a book called The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire, the truth is a very important theme. Fairies are unable to lie, so Sabrina assumes that they’re always upfront with what they say. But there’s not lying and there’s being truthful and those are two very different things. Sabrina learns this the hard way as she gets manipulated by the fairy prince that claims to want to help her.
But Sabrina has her own tenuous relationship with the truth to deal with. She’s very good at lying, including to herself. Her time in Eu Gwald forces her to face the truth about her sister, herself, and her life. Only by searching deep and discovering what she truly wants in life will she be able to save herself and her sister from Eu Gwald. Part of her journey is discovering what a cage actually is. Sabrina sees her life as a cage that she can’t escape from no matter what she does. But Sabrina comes to realize that while not all cages look the same from the outside, they all feel the same on the inside.
There are a lot of characters stuck in a lot of different cages in The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire. At the beginning, Sabrina doesn’t see this, she’s too focused on herself and her situation. But as she gets to know the other characters better and takes the time to see things from their point of view, she realizes that things aren’t always what they seem. While that’s par for the course in Eu Gwald and she should have come to the conclusion sooner about some of the characters, it’s more surprising for her when she realizes that her own sister feels just as trapped as her. And even her Gran has been trapped for decades as she waits for her missing sister to return. Cages take all different forms but the misery of their occupants is always the same.
A perfect ending for our heroine
A lot of fantasies, especially those that deal with fairies, have truth vs lies as an underlying theme. After all, fairies are tricksters who can’t be trusted, even if they must always speak the truth, and humans love to lie. But The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire takes that theme in an interesting direction. Instead of focusing on truth in the romantic relationship (there is that, but it’s not actually the focus of the story), Fiteni forces Sabrina to be honest with herself. Only when Sabrina stops lying to herself and admits what she really wants in life is she able to defeat the darkness threatening Eu Gwald and free herself and her sister. Her ending for Sabrina and Neirin isn’t a conventional one for a romance, but it is the perfect one for Sabrina. I feel like a conventional ending would have defeated the entire purpose of the story and I’m so glad that Fiteni didn’t fall into that trap!
Even with the unconventional ending I think romance lovers will still fall for The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire. Fantasy lovers will greatly enjoy this book too. The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire is Anna Fiteni’s first novel and based on this first offering I’d say we can expect great things in the future from her.
Rating: 9/10
Check out The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire, available on September 9th, 2025 so you can say that you liked Anna Fiteni before she was cool!
Learn more about the book, including where to purchase it, at the author’s official website.
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