These Hollow Vows

I picked up These Hollow Vows because I was tired of fae books and then someone told me this one starts with a girl who is also tired of fae books, in a manner of speaking. Brie, full name Abriella, hates the fae with a focus that feels personal rather than fashionable. She lives in the human world, she is poor, she steals to eat, and she has decided that death is better than owing anything to the folk across the border. That stance hooked me. I wanted to see what would force her to break it. The answer is her younger sister Jas, and the book never lets you forget that. This is a 2021 young adult fantasy from Clarion Books, 448 pages in hardcover, first in the These Hollow Vows series. It follows Brie as she bargains with the Unseelie king, sneaks into the Seelie court, and gets pulled between two princes who both seem to be lying about something.

What surprised me was how fast the story moves once the bargain is set. I expected a lot of court longing and slow dances. There is some of that, especially around Prince Ronan, but there is also sneaking through halls, pocketing objects that burn to touch, and trying to smile at a ball while counting exits. I read most of it in two sittings, partly because the chapters end on small hooks, partly because I kept changing my mind about Finn.

A basement, a debt, and Jas

Brie and Jas live with their aunt in the human town, in a damp basement room while the aunt and her daughters live better upstairs. It has a Cinderella shape without feeling like a copy. The aunt is harsh, the cousins are careless, money is always short, and Brie steals to cover debts and food. Jas is younger, softer in some ways, tougher in others, and Brie is fiercely protective of her. Their parents are gone, and what family safety they have comes from each other.

The background matters here. In this world the fae revealed themselves to humans at some point in the past, and contact has been bad for ordinary people. Humans get taken, traded, sold to the fae as servants or worse. Brie has seen enough of that trade to hate all of it. She refuses deals, refuses gifts, refuses conversation if she can help it. Jas is less rigid, more curious, which creates friction between them that feels true to sisters. Brie scolds. Jas pushes back. Then Jas gets taken to pay a debt, sold to the sadistic king of the Unseelie court.

I found these early chapters strong because Ryan keeps the stakes small and physical. Mold on walls. Empty cupboards. A pair of shoes wearing thin. Brie counting coins. When the aunt sells Jas, it lands as both shock and extension of the same cruelty. Brie cannot fight the king with force, so she goes to him and begs, and he offers a trade instead of mercy. That trade drives the rest of the book.

The bargain and the three thefts

The Unseelie king does not want an apology. He wants three magical relics held by the rival Seelie court. If Brie steals them for him, he will return Jas. If she fails, Jas pays. It is a classic fae bargain, unfair and precise, with punishment built into the wording. Brie agrees because there is no other path, though she knows fae bargains twist.

I liked that Brie does not suddenly become a master spy. She can pick pockets in the human market. She knows how to lie to a shopkeeper and slip out a back door. The Seelie court is different. There is glamour, guards, magic that notices intent, and rules about iron and names and promises that she only half understands. She has to learn fast. The king gives her little help, mostly pressure and reminders that Jas is in his hands. That pressure sits over every scene after, even the romantic ones.

The three objects are not described in dry catalog terms. They feel old and tied to the courts, things that hum or chill the skin, things people guard for reasons beyond value. Brie has to find each one, work out wards and routines, and carry them out without being caught. I may be misremembering the exact order she goes after them, but the pattern holds. Each theft is harder than the last, each one asks her to get closer to people she plans to betray, and each success makes her feel worse rather than safer. That guilt is one of the better threads. She tells herself it is for Jas, which is true, and also that the Seelie deserve it, which she starts to doubt.

There is also the question of why the king wants these items now. Brie wonders, and so did I. He already has power. He already has Jas. The push for Seelie relics points to a larger move between courts, not a collector habit. The book holds that answer back, which frustrated me in a good way. I kept reading to learn what the set would do together.

Pretending to win Prince Ronan

Brie cannot walk into the Seelie palace and ask for a tour of the vaults. Her way in is to pose as a candidate to marry Prince Ronan. The Seelie court is gathering young women, there are trials and balls and viewing parties, and Brie slips into that stream. She practices curtsies she hates, smiles until her face hurts, and tries to look like someone who wants a crown.

Ronan was the surprise for me. I expected cold arrogance. He is sheltered and proud, yes, and raised to perform, but he shows kindness in small choices. He notices when Brie is hungry. He steps in when another courtier is cruel. He talks about duty as if it weighs on him rather than excites him. Brie plans to use him, and then she starts to like him, and then she hates herself for liking him while lying to him. Their scenes have a push and pull that works because both are performing. He performs prince. She performs bride. Under that, they trade truer bits in asides, on balconies, during walks away from listeners.

The court itself is bright and mannered on the surface and sharp underneath. Ladies compete. Lords watch. Servants report. Magic is used for display and for control. Brie makes mistakes with etiquette and covers with boldness, which Ronan seems to enjoy. She also uses the access to map rooms, note guard changes, and test which doors respond to which blood or token. Those spy passages are tense without becoming silly. She almost gets caught more than once. Once, I held my breath through a whole search scene where she has to talk her way past someone while holding something she should not have.

Romance readers should know the heat level stays in young adult range. Long looks, close dances, a kiss that matters, a lot of talk about vows and what they cost. The title fits. Every promise in this book has weight, especially with fae listening. Brie learns to speak carefully, to avoid giving her word when she means maybe, because the fae will hold her to the letter.

Finn and the misfits

While Brie works the Seelie side, she accepts help from a band of Unseelie misfits led by Finn. They are thieves and runaways and sharp tongues, living between courts, taking jobs and keeping secrets. They offer Brie tools, routes, distractions, and warnings about Seelie customs. In return they want their own cut of the outcome, though they do not lay all of it out at first.

Finn is the other pole from Ronan. Where Ronan is polished and watched, Finn is watchful and loose, funny in a tired way, quick to step close and then step back. He flirts, he teaches Brie how to move through fae spaces, how to spot a lie phrased as courtesy, how to bargain without surrendering her name. He also keeps things back. Brie senses it. I sensed it. His crew clearly cares for him, and he clearly carries something about the Unseelie throne and his place near it. His uncle, the current holder of power in the Unseelie court, is the one claiming rule, while Finn has a stronger claim by blood. That detail reframes a lot of his jokes once you sit with it.

I liked the found family feel here more than the ballroom scenes. There is a cramped hideout, shared food, people patching each other up after bad nights, teasing that covers fear. One of the crew, a girl with a sharp eye for locks, takes Brie under her wing in a practical way. No long speeches. Just show me your hands, hold it like this, try again. Those moments gave Brie a place to breathe outside the performance of being a bride. They also made her choices harder. Betraying the Seelie for Jas is one thing. Risking these new friends is another.

The love triangle, if you want to call it that, works because the two bonds are different. Ronan offers safety, status, and a version of goodness inside a flawed court. Finn offers understanding, risk, and a shared anger at how both courts treat humans. Brie is drawn to both for reasons that make sense, not because the plot needs her confused. I leaned toward Finn for most of the book, then doubted myself whenever Ronan did something decent. That swing feels intended.

Courts, lies, and the cost of stealing hearts

Past the midpoint, the thefts start to bite. Allies ask sharper questions. Servants notice Brie in places she should not be. Ronan notices changes in her mood and presses gently, which is worse than anger. Finn presses too, from the other side, asking for more trust than Brie can give while she still hides parts of the bargain. The fae cannot lie outright in the usual way, but they mislead by omission, by careful phrasing, by letting humans assume. Brie gets better at hearing the gaps. So did I, and I started rereading conversations in my head.

Without flattening the twists, I can say the book turns on identity and loyalty more than on a single object. Who Brie is, who her mother was, why the fae notice her at all, why iron and blood react around her the way they do, all of that matters more as the pages go on. I guessed part of it early and missed another part completely. The reveal near the end made me look back at small comments from the first hundred pages and feel tricked in a fair way. Clues were there. I just read past them while worrying about Jas.

The last act moves to confrontation rather than quiet theft. Courts collide. Promises come due. People Brie cares about get hurt because of choices she made with good reasons. Jas is still central, not forgotten while romance blooms, and the scenes between the sisters carry weight. Jas has changed through captivity. She is not a prop to rescue. She has seen the Unseelie court from inside and has her own anger and fear. Their reunion is tender and strained at once, which I appreciated. Rescue does not reset what happened.

I will keep the final pages vague to leave room for new readers, but expect a cliffhanger. The bargain does not end cleanly. One court gains, another bleeds, Brie learns she gave more than she meant with her words, and a choice about hearts, literal and otherwise, sets up the next book, These Twisted Bonds. I closed the book annoyed in the way you get annoyed when you have to wait. That is probably the point.

What worked and what tired me

Brie carries this. She is stubborn, practical, and often wrong in human ways. She misreads kindness as strategy and strategy as kindness. She apologizes late. She doubles down when she should explain. I believed her. Jas feels real too, even with less page time, because her choices push back against Brie rather than serving her. Ronan and Finn both get enough interior life to avoid becoming tokens, though Finn gets more mystery by design. The Unseelie king is frightening without long speeches. He is polite, patient, and absolute, which is worse than shouting.

The writing is plain in a good way for this kind of fantasy. Short exchanges. Clear stakes. A lot of attention to hands, doors, food, clothes, the small signs that someone is lying. Magic has rules and prices, and Ryan enforces them. Vows bind. Debts transfer. Names matter. That consistency helped me trust the twists.

Fair criticism. The middle sags a little around court ritual. There are balls and fittings and lessons that repeat. I understand they show Brie sinking into Seelie life, but two or three scenes could have been shorter. A few side courtiers blur together. I also wanted more time with the aunt after the opening, not because I like her but because the debt that starts everything deserved a harder look later. And readers who dislike love triangles will still find one here, even if it is better handled than most.

Who will like it. If you enjoy Sarah J. Maas or Holly Black or Stephanie Garber, the mix of fae courts, bargains, and romance will feel familiar, with Ryan keeping the focus tight on Brie and Jas. It is young adult, so expect scheming and kissing over explicit scenes, and expect action to matter as much as banter. Content notes would include captivity, threats to a sibling, violence, and power gaps between humans and fae that the book treats as serious.

I finished thinking less about which prince Brie should pick and more about what her bargains will cost her next. She set out to save Jas without becoming like the fae. By the end she has lied, stolen, and promised in ways that sound very fae indeed. That shift is the hook for book two for me. I want to see if she can pull back, or if the courts have already shaped her into someone who trades hearts as easily as relics.