Reader's Journal

Well, Holly is here as I said, so I figured, why not discuss?

Join me in this possibly concerning yet in depth assumption in Holly’s new addition to the Elfhame Series 💋:

So we know that 2 of the stories in this 304 page book will be new content, but what about the others?

I assume that this will include:

1. The Lament of Lutie-Loo, which spans 29 pages.

2. The deleted scene at the end of the Barnes and Nobles edition of The Wicked King (6 pages total)

3. New story based on Madoc in the mortal world

4. Seems like The Lost Sisters will finally be published outside of an ebook? Doesn’t sound like it will be a new story following Taryn. (Spans 50-100 pages depending on format)

5. Heather is on the cover, meaning we could get The Honest Folk- heathers short story that followed the end of the queen of nothing. It is 25 pages long.

6. Cardans new story

Cardans new story theory:

The cosmopolitan mentions that 2 stories will be new INCLUDING a new one of HIGH KING (specifically) Cardan who “realizes what he most desires” … so i assume we get a short story focusing on him when jude is in exile?

Normally i would say that Cardan knew he wanted jude as his queen for a while, but the timeline is weird.

(since we are already getting a story on his pov WHEN she was taken)

So it seems it’s either BEFORE the events of the wicked king, the 5 months that passed when Jude was seneschal, or AFTER she was taken by the undersea, which would primarily be her exile. Which is why i think his letters may finally be released (the author also mentioned finally having rights over them so it’s not impossible) Possibly even his pov when he married jude?

i highly doubt it’ll be from after the events of the queen of nothing bc he already had what he wanted (Jude)

It makes sense because there was a bit of context to explore there. Cardans letters (will these finally hit non-exclusive publishing?) and him going to heathers/vivis apartment.

Unrelated to Cardan but alternative possibility:

1. A Visit to the Impossible Lands (lutie AND Kaye being on the cover makes me want to think there will be more modern faerie tales content, but I’m unsure) UNLESS Holly decides to MERGE the two stories into a dual pov thing. Maybe unlikely due to limited amt of pages tho! the timelines also match up. Lutie pisses off balekin- then later Kaye and roiben travel to witness dain being crowned. Could work. and i know that these characters are beloved, not just by fans but by the author, so i remain positive about this theory!

In total, we have 304 CONFIRMED pages. It’s unclear about the sizes of the other stories obviously, and it’s unclear if Holly black will add to these stories, especially one of cardans stories, as jude was kidnapped, since that was a deleted (and very short) scene

The wicked king deleted scenes: 7 pages

cardans letters which i assume will be included: 7 pages?

Rough estimate of the lost sisters: 70~ish pages

The Honest Folk: 25 pages

The Lament of Lutie-Loo: 29 pages

A visit to the impossible lands: 14 pages

Which adds up to around 151 pages. This leaves around 50+ pages for the NEW stories + any additions that may be added to the deleted scene

We must remember it’s going to be illustrated, so I’m just gonna cut the total page number in half… 150~

This is where the REAL delusion begins:

To compare this new book with the other illustrated novella, Rovina Cai’s artwork spanned over 54 FULL/ half pages- of the 172 pg book (1/3 of the book).

i don’t know how different the formatting will be, but i assume that frostbites illustrations will cover around 1/3 of the book. Meaning that around 100 pages may have illustrations- that cover atleast half the page? (This may be a complete and utter stretch, especially due to the fact that 100 different artworks that cover more than half of the page- in 2(?) years mind you (going off of the enemies and lovers timeline) may be utterly ridiculous. Artists lmk 😭)

I assume there won’t be THAT many pages of full illustrations/ filler pages inbetween stories, which leaves more for the writing.

Which may mean that there will be around 200+ pages of writing content?

Which also leaves madocs and cardans short story, which could or could not span around 25 pages each? less? more?

I’m rereading this and giggling at how absurd i sound BUT i digress