So, one of the drawbacks of well established ideas of mythological creatures is that they often get repeated, with little to no variation. Elves are a great example of this; there seem to be three general flavours, the Tolkein/Fae variation - which is almost always a medieval setting, even if it clashes with the real world, the Santa/Harry Potter variation, where they tend to be cute little servants, and the myth variations, where they're drawing more heavily from either Celtic or Nordic legends.

I think one of the reasons I enjoyed Kynship, first of a trilogy called 'The Way of Thorn & Thunder', so much is that it turns the general variations on their ear in a way I haven't seen before.

( Review under the cut, mild spoilers )