See the fantastical cover for Holly Black’s latest faerie adventure!

Holly Black is headed back at the land of magic and faeries with her upcoming series, Folk of the Air. The series follows three siblings stolen and raised in the faerie court after their parents murder. In the first novel, The Cruel Prince, 17-year-old Jude must face the fact that she’ll never fit in at the faerie court and that some fae, including the powerful Prince Cardan, may be scheming against her.

EW just released a first look at the gorgeous book cover and an excerpt from the novel, which hits shelves next winter. Take a look!

As dawn breaks, I open the windows to my bedroom and let the last of the cool night air flow in as I strip off my Court dress. I feel hot all over. My skin feels too tight, and my heart won’t stop racing.

I’ve been to Court before many times. I’ve been witness to more awfulness than wings being torn or my person insulted. Faeries make up for their inability to lie with a panoply of deceptions and cruelties. Twisted words, pranks, omissions, riddles, scandals, not to mention their revenges upon one another for ancient, half-remembered slights. Storms are less fickle than they are, seas less capricious.

Like, for example, as a redcap, Madoc needs bloodshed the way a mermaid needs the salt spray of the sea. After every battle, he ritually dips his hood into the blood of his enemies. I’ve seen the hood, kept under glass in the armory. The fabric is stiff and stained a brown so deep it’s almost black, except for a few smears of green.

Sometimes I go down and stare at it, trying to see my parents in the tide lines of dried blood. I want to feel something, something besides a vague queasiness. I want to feel more, but every time I look at it, I feel less.

READ THE FULL EXCERPT HERE!

To celebrate the reveal, makeup artist Lara Wirth worked with Holly and Little, Brown to carefully recreate the cover design in body paint!

The Cruel Prince hits shelves on January 2, 2018. You can pre-order it now via Amazon.

By Molly

Molly is a proud Canadian who is currently attending university in Scotland. She loves to read, write, watch films, and talk about Sarah J. Maas books. If not snuggled up with a book, Molly can usually be found tapping at the dance studio, or writing yet another essay.