How to use this Page

What a delight these second ABBA anniversary posts are turning out to be.  I'm having such fun reading them. And now it's my turn to celebrate with my own five fabulous forays into faeryland.... 

Lately--usually deep into the night when the world is still and silent apart from the cries of hunting owls--I have found myself led astray.  I have walked down strange paths and met beauty and horror and humour and cruelty and bravery and sadness and romance all mixed up together.  In short, I have been lured into YA faeryland.  Don't be fooled by the word faery (or fairy).  These are not some cutesie, flowery, pink-dressed tiny beings out of picture-books and Disney.  No--they are the Sidhe, the Fair Folk, the Seelie and Unseelie Courts--faeries from the older and darker side of legend.  I've been familiar with those original ancient legends for most of my life--I've retold some of them myself, and of course I had my own green version of faeries--the Fey--in Hootcat Hill. Tam Linn, Thomas the Rhymer, the fairy smiths of Skye, the fairy cattle of the sea, the children of Danu--all these and more I know and love.  But these new faeries I've discovered live in this modern world of ours (the USA being a current favoured setting for most but not all), and I stumbled across some of them quite by chance--via recommendations on Twitter, in fact.    So first, I will introduce you to:
Melissa Marr  Melissa's Wicked Lovely series was recommended by someone whose opinion I value, and as soon as I read the three Rules which her heroine, Aislinn, must follow, I was hooked in at once. Rule 3: Never stare at invisible faeries.  Rule 2: Never speak to invisible faeries.  Rule 1: Don't ever attract the attention of invisible faeries.  But the Summer King, Keenan is determined that mortal Aislinn will be his Summer Queen, and her rules become increasingly hard to keep.  There are four books so far in the series, with one more to come.  They're a kind of edgy, "urban faerie' genre I hadn't come across before. Once I'd read and loved that first book I bought the others at once, being a reader who has to 'know what happened next'.  Melissa writes a fabulous strong, feisty heroine--and her heroes are never just handsome cyphers, but are equally strong individuals. I particularly like the railway-carriage dwelling Seth.  I found myself loathing the old Winter Queen with a passion--and yet being fascinated by the way her mind works and her Machiavellian schemes.  Having finished the second book, Ink Exchange, I was also left with a strong desire for a tattoo.  There aren't many books which would make me contemplate needles on my skin (I hate needles).  This one did--and I'

Display Comments Add a Comment