Can’t-Wait Wednesday: Faebound by Saara El-Arifi
Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted here to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they’re books that have yet to be released. Find out more here.

My choice for this week is the first in a new trilogy that turns convention on its head and explores a queer high fantasy world where elves thrive and humans are legend.

by Saara El-Arifi
Adult, High Fantasy
Hardcover and eBook, 496 pages
January 18, 2024 by HarperVoyager
Two elven sisters become imprisoned in the hidden world of the fae where danger, and love, lies in wait. Faebound is the first book in an enchanting new trilogy from the internationally bestselling author of The Final Strife.
A thousand years ago, the world held three fae, elves, and humans. But now the fae and humans exist only in myth and legend, survived by the elves who are trapped in an endless war over the remaining lands.
Yeeran is a colonel in the elven army and has known nothing but a life of violence and hardship. Her sister, Lettle, is a diviner whose magic promises a different future for her and her sister, but the prophecies have yet come to pass.
When a fatal mistake leads to Yeeran’s exile from the Elven Lands, Lettle, fearful for her sister’s life, follows her into the uncharted territory beyond their borders. In the wilderness the sisters encounter the largest obeah they have ever seen. Part leopard, part stag, the obeah’s magic is harnessed to make weapons for the elven war. It is during this hunt that they are confronted with the a group of fae who take them captive. Imprisoned in a new land, they must navigate the politics of the fae court all while planning their escape.
Now Yeeran and Lettle are fighting a different kind of between their loyalty to their elven homeland and the intoxicating world of the fae, between what duty decrees is right, and what their hearts tell them they need.