Filthy Rich Fae

Filthy Rich Fae (2024) is an urban fantasy and paranormal romance novel by Geneva Lee, who is a New York Times bestselling author. Lee is known for her successful contemporary romance series, including Filthy Rich Vampires and The Royals. This book is the first installment in the Filthy Rich Fae series. It follows Cate Holloway, a young nurse in New Orleans, who makes a desperate bargain with a powerful fae prince to save her foster brother. She becomes trapped in a dangerous world of court politics and forbidden attraction, and she navigates shifting loyalties and desire. The novel draws on traditional fae folklore and is set in a modern, crime-ridden New Orleans, exploring themes such as Sacrifice as the Foundation of Chosen Kinship, Moral Complexity and the Ethics of Violence, and The Power Dynamics of Debt and Vulnerability.

This guide is based on the 2024 Entangled Publishing e-book edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide contain depictions of graphic violence, sexual content, substance use, illness, cursing, death, physical abuse, bullying, child sexual abuse, and rape.

Plot Summary

Cate Holloway, an emergency room nurse at New Orleans’s Gage Memorial Hospital, is familiar with the city’s dangerous street drug, “trinity.” It is a corrupted version of a harmless drug called “clover” and has resulted in several overdose deaths. Cate is frustrated that the notorious and powerful Gage family crime syndicate that put the drug on the street also runs the city from the shadows, financing even the hospital she works at.

Cate’s life is upended when her foster brother, Channing, is brought to the hospital with a gunshot wound, and she discovers his involvement with the Gage crime family. Cate, an orphan, is devoted to Channing, considering him her only living family; their foster mother, whom she calls Gran, passed away years ago. Cate learns that Channing is working off a debt to the Gage family’s leader, Lachlan Gage. Hoping to protect Channing, she reports the shooting to the police, which leads to her suspension from work since her boss reports to the Gages and is supposed to keep all Gage-related incidents under wraps.

Determined to free her brother, Cate goes to the Gage-owned Avalon Hotel to confront Lachlan. She is intercepted by Lachlan himself. In his private office, she witnesses his associates brutally punish a man by severing his hand. Cate is aware that Lachlan is cruel and dangerous, but she is desperate to save Channing. She offers him her dead mother’s emerald ring to try and pay off Channing’s debt, but Lachlan deems the ring worthless. Cate says she is willing to give Lachlan anything, and he asks her if she will give him her soul. Cate is confused but agrees, and Lachlan seals the bargain by having her eat an apple, which magically binds her to him. He then transports her to a parallel dimension known as the Otherworld, revealing his true fae form: He is bigger that he appeared earlier and has pointed ears and tattoos that shift with emotion. He reveals that he is the prince of the Nether Court, which is one of the four ruling fae courts alongside the Infernal Court, the Astral Court, and the Hallow Court.

Trapped in Lachlan’s palace, Cate is distressed and angry that she was tricked into this bargain. She learns she must spend every night of her life with him. He gives her a magical pendant with an abismine stone that allows her to travel between worlds, and she negotiates the right to return to her life during the day. Cate is introduced to Lachlan’s siblings—Ciara, Shaw, and Fiona—and Roark, who is Lachlan’s penumbra or deputy. Lachlan explains that the trinity crisis is due to tainted magic and says he must form an alliance with the Infernal Court to replace it—this alliance will be secured by the arranged marriage of Ciara to Prince Bain of the Infernal Court. He asks Cate to befriend Ciara and provide her emotional support since she doesn’t want to marry Bain, and Cate becomes genuinely fond of her. At Ciara and Bain’s betrothal, Cate meets the heirs of the other fae courts, including Oberon, the prince of the Hallow Court, who has an easy manner and seems interested in Cate.

Believing Lachlan’s death is the only way to break the bargain, Cate attempts to shoot him, but he reveals he expected this, and Cate’s attempt fails. Impressed by her mettle, he offers a new challenge: If she can discover what he wants from their bargain within a month and a day, and then refuse to give it to him, he will release her. However, Cate and Lachlan are increasingly attracted to one another, and this culminates in a passionate sexual relationship that deepens their emotional bond and complicates their bargain.

Meanwhile, Cate, Ciara, and the Astral Court prince, Sirius, secretly research the trinity drug and discover it was tainted with Infernal Court magic. Sirius presents the evidence of the sabotage to representatives from all four fae courts, though Bain denies his involvement. Ciara then dissolves the betrothal, and an enraged Lachlan banishes Bain and the Infernal Court from New Orleans and his Nether Court. He also publicly presents Cate as his partner.

While Lachlan deals with the political fallout, Bain’s penumbra, MacAlister, ambushes Cate in Lachlan’s quarters, intending to kill her to destroy Lachlan emotionally. Cate defends herself, shooting MacAlister with a gun Lachlan keeps hidden. Lachlan arrives to find MacAlister dying and explains that killing a penumbra marks the killer for death by a group of fae mercenaries called the Wild Hunt. To save her, Lachlan fires the final, fatal shot, taking the death mark for himself. He then breaks their magical bargain by tricking Cate into swearing she will never give him her mother’s emerald ring, which is the true price he wanted for her soul, thus voiding the deal. He gives Cate an escape kit and tells her to flee, warning her to never remove the ring.

Before Cate escapes from New Orleans, she first tries to retrieve Channing. However, Channing betrays her, having made his own deal with Oberon in an attempt to rescue her from Lachlan. Oberon drugs Cate and kidnaps her, and he then shoots Channing. When Lachlan learns that Cate was kidnapped, he abdicates his throne, leaving it to Ciara and Roark, as he prepares to rescue her. He also reveals that Cate’s emerald ring possesses magic that disguises her true, non-human nature even from herself. He realized this back when she first offered him the ring, and he also reveals that he has been searching for her for a long time. In the Epilogue, Cate awakens as a prisoner in the Hallow Court. Oberon reveals he plans to use her as a pawn to instigate a war between the fae courts.