Review: Fragile Eternity by Melissa Marr, Book 3 of the Wicked Lovely Series

 The fae courts stand on the cusp of conflict – conflict brought by Bananach, ancient faerie of war who longs for the courts to march against each other.

But her machinations are finding success not because of the fae’s bloodlust, but because of the conflicted emotions and jealousies of the fae rulers. Niall, holding grudges for Summer’s failure to protect Leslie is looking for an excuse to slaughter in revenge. Aislinn is torn by her love for Seth and her powers as Summer Queen drawing her towards Keenan, the Summer King. Keenan’s relationship with Donia, the Winter Queen is rocky and difficult – perhaps even impossible. And, again, he is drawn to his Queen and jealous and angry with Seth – who is best friends with Niall and gives him another excuse to strike against Summer.

As the emotions become more volatile, more and more foolish, rash actions follow, raising more tension between the courts and threatening Summer just as it should be resurgent. Desperate to be fae, Seth turns to the 4^th court, the High Queen Sorcha and potentially drags them into the ensuing conflict as well with his new, powerful links to Sorcha and his long separation from Summer and the Dark Court.

This is a book that is all about character interaction. Which, to me, makes it a book that is very much down to personal taste. Personally, I am not generally a big fan of books that have lots of sitting around and talking and not a whole lot of things actually happening or people doing things.

I was left with some feelings of disconnect with some of the characters though, mainly because they felt so transformed from what they were for the sake of extra conflict. I didn’t expect Niall to be Keenan and Ailing’s biggest fan after Leslie (but the blame for that surely falls on Irial’s shoulders?) but the level of antipathy in this book is extreme. Similarly, the hostility from Donia seems to have reached unexpected heights. For that matter, the depth of the friendship between Seth and Nial (to such a degree that Seth is willing to overlook Niall’s treatment of Aislinn) seems to have suddenly peaked without a full foundation. This all cumulated by Sorcha, immortal, unchanging, unemotional, eternal Sorcha deciding to form her bond with Seth.

Review: Wicked Lovely, by Melissa Marr, Book 1 of the Wicked Lovely Series

Aislinn is a mortal gifted with the Sight. She can see Fairies. The invisible denizens of the fairy courts stalk humanity, playing tricks, playing games sometimes cruelly and maliciously. They’re not to be trusted, she’s always been told by her Sighted grandmother. Not to be trusted and always to be avoided. Especially as a Sighted mortal – fae have been known to kill and blind mortals with her ability.

Mostly she tries to ignore them – but 2 of them, Keanan and Donia, have started following her and paying far too much attention. Worse of all, they’re not just fae, but nobility of the fae courts and Keanan is determined to insert himself into her life.

Aislinn is reluctantly dragged into a war between the Summer and the Winter courts, with a future being forced upon her, playing a game she doesn’t know the rules of – where she has to decide what she wants and how much the fae are demanding she sacrifice. Especially with her grandmother’s warnings still loud and clear

The world is interesting – the fae always allow for vast variety and variations and even more here where we have not just the classic 2 courts so often seen in stories – but several courts all with their own fae, their own customs, their own nature and their own problems.

The idea of invisible fairies, despite being such a major part of faerie lore, is still not something that has been overly developed. And I really love the idea of the faeries being everywhere invisibly and how someone with the Sight has to negotiate through that world.

The battle between Winter and Summer is literally epic on a world wide scale –while at the same time being deeply personal. While the knowledge that Winter is slowly taking over the world and is eventually going to destroy life it’s still a very personal fight. Yes the world is in the balance, but it’s also a personal battle between Keanan and his mother with Donia dragged along. It manged to balance both epic and personal together extremely well.

Storywise, while it’s an interesting world with interesting characters it was faintly predictable. There was a twist in that Aislinn maintained her own demands as well as with Donia’s fate and it was certainly a fun, interesting story – but it was a story where the ending could be seen pretty early on and I didn’t think there was much maintained tension. It was fun and interesting – but, perhaps, not exciting and tense. I also feel the ending was somewhat anti-climactic and seemed to end too suddenly. The epic confrontation was too short .

I really like the character of Aislinn. She manages to be strong without being perfect and without being impossibly aggressive and ridiculously reality denying.  Nor does the world magically change to fit her because she has defied it.

She is faced with a deeply unpalatable situation – but it doesn’t go away just because she’s insisted it should. She doesn’t want to be a fairy or the Summer Queen and never once relents in this. She doesn’t like Keenan and doesn’t want him – no matter how many times he pushes her and tries to seduce her, she doesn’t melt to him. This is a wonderful change from a genre that has oodles of reluctant women who are finally brought round by the persistent, stalking, can’t-take-no-for-an-answer heroes.