Melissa Marr is the writer behind the fantabulous Wicked Lovely Young Adult series. We, the Book Smugglers, are huge fans of the author and her work: as evidenced by our reviews of Wicked Lovely, Ink Exchange (which made our top 10 list of 2008) and Fragile Eternity (which will make our top 10 of 2009). We are extremely happy to have Melissa Marr once more as our guest with this insightful look into working on her Manga series. Please, welcome Melissa Marr!

This article by Melissa Marr is the second in our SUPERNATURAL SUMMER book feature from Harper Teen. This week we will bring you five different books by five different authors, including interviews, articles and giveaways.

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The material below is a modified version of what was included in the USB drives I passed out at the tour events this year. People had a lot of questions about the manga process, so I wrote up a file with the various stages. With the artists’ permission, I incuded a sample of the stages of the art too. (Each panel is sent to me at leat three times—thumbnail, pencil, and ink—for my approval or other notes.)

Step #1:
Along with already being a haphazard manga reader, I did a bunch of research on the history, current disccusions, and traditions of manga. To the purists, I make no claim that this is a traditional manga. I couldn’t do so: it is authored by an American, influenced by Celtic folklore, with one Nordic protagonist and one mixed heritage protagonist, set in the American Southwest–with art by a Spanish artist.

Research and style preferences and data in hand, I talked to the editors about what I wanted in an artist. I gave over excerts on the characters. Various artists sent in their sketches after they read my excerpts. From these, I selected the sketches that caught the feel of the world, the characters, and the story. It wasn’t a simple case of “they drew exactly what I wrote,” but a case of someone capturing the right feeling to go with my words.

THE EXCERPT for PRIMARY CHARACTERS

Rika: Her short hair is just long enough that it brushes her shoulder as her head tilts. We can see her multi-pierced earlobe. A bar runs horizontally at the top of her ear. She’s not uber-girly. She’s a jeans girl, tattered jeans, ripped by activity not design. She’s not bulky, but not waif thin either. Her arms have the sort of muscles one gets when one hikes, rockwalls, et al. Thin, but firm. (NOTE: As established in WL, Rika is of Nordic ancestry. Blonde, blue-eyed, good cheek bones.)

Keenan: (quotes directly from Wicked Lovely) He glowed faintly all the time, as if hot coals burned inside him. His collar-length hair shimmered like strands of copper . . . tan and too beautiful to touch, walking with an swagger that said he knew exactly how attractive he was. He moved as if he were in charge of everyone and everything, seeming taller for it. But he wasn’t really that tall. . . almost average in size, only a head taller than she was. . . From the hems of his faded jeans to his heavy wool coat, he was too up-town. He’d dulled his copper hair to sandy-blonde, hidden that strange rustle of summer, but even in his human glamour, he was too pretty to be real.

Jayce: He has dreads-in-progress, not quite the tidy dreadlocks, but semi-formed. They are dark, dark brown, with a few dyed purple. Sometimes his hair is pulled back in a sort of ponytail at the base of his neck. Strands escape. It’s casual. He has NO piercings or tattoos at all. Think granola-guy–unbleached cotton, jeans that are frayed at the bottom, battered rucksack with notebook, pen, water bottle. No ipod for him, he’s a rockhound & hiker. He wears the approp layered clothing for milling about in the desert–tank (what is called a “wife beater” in slang), button up or tee over it, loose, casual clothes that can get tattered. Not into appearances.

Sionnach (Gaelic for “fox”): He has fox-ish features, short auburn hair, extra angular eyes (not Asian, but slightly larger, slightly elongated, odd pupils), extra pronounced features as if his cheeks are edged too sharply, quick, agile, just enough out of normal mortal proportions that you want too look at him longer, but not so Other that he is required to hide under a glamour. He calls for second glances though. Grinning/smiling like he’s terribly amused by secrets no one else knows, hears jokes others don’t . . . smart ass persona, with moments of sageness. Wiry, lithe, not bony but not at all bulky. He is called “Shy” because he isn’t.

THE SKETCHES THAT I LOVED AND INSISTED HAD TO BE THE ARTIST:

STEP #2 MY VERY FIRST DRAFT

Rika is in a desert setting–not a Saguaro desert, but Mojave/Anza-Borrego, lovely rock faces & maybe Joshua Trees, some cholla cactus, flowering prickly pears (et al). It’s stark, lovely, and solitary. Rika looks happy.
Keenan appears (as if he steps out of a swirling dust devil).
R: “Why?”
K: Why what?
R: *disbelieving expression* Why do you bother me?
Keenan, without arrogance but still irritating, makes a gesture and the sand forms into chairs as if the were in a shop. The chairs have striations. “Is it such a bother to talk to me?”
Rika steps further from him. She watches the sand lifting & shifting over the expanse of desert. She doesn’t look at him. “Yes. I think it is.”
“Even now?” Keenan sits down. Heat radiates from him, to him, as if his skin is breathing the extreme temperature in and out. “You’re free of the–”
R turns to face him: “I dream of it. I wake up convinced that winter is still inside my veins. Did you know that? What you did–”
“I didn’t do that to you.” Keenan unpleasant expression.
“Did you choose me?” Rika has her head tilted as she looks at him. Her short hair is just long enough that it brushes her shoulder as her head tilts. We can see her multi-pierced earlobe. A bar runs horizontally at the top of her ear.
“I did, but–”
“Did I have to carry ice in my body for years, decades, because you made a mistake?”
“Yes, but–”
“So why wouldn’t it bother me to see you?”
He pushes back his hair, frustrated. The copper strands are like solidified sunlight.
She sits down (one foot on the ground, one foot beside her knee on the chair, her bent knee up by her chest) finally, posture far more assertive now. (As she’s been talking, getting angrier, she’s more forward, less intimidated by him.) Her jeans are ripped in the knee.

STEP #3 FIRST DRAFT (excerpt) in paragraph form:

Rika is in a desert setting–not a Saguaro desert, but Mojave/Anza-Borrego, lovely rock faces and maybe Joshua Trees, some cholla cactus, flowering prickly pears (et al). It’s stark, lovely, and solitary. Rika looks happy.
She’s not uber-girly. She’s a jeans girl, tattered jeans, ripped by activity not design. Her arms have the sort of muscles one gets when one hikes, rockwalls, et al. Thin, but firm. (NOTE: As established in WL, Rika is of Nordic ancestry. Blonde, blue-eyed, good cheek bones.)
Keenan appears, coming across the ground like he’s moving out of a swirling dust devil.
Rika’s expression is hurt, nervous at seeing him. “Why?”
“Why what?”
Rika has a disbelieving expression; her words are careful as she asks, “Why do you bother me?”
Ignoring her, Keenan makes a gesture and the sand forms into chairs as if the were in a shop. The chairs have striations. He isn’t quite posturing, but he is clearly aware of his appearance. Then the sand around him stills as he asks, “Is it such a bother to talk to me?”
Rika steps further away from him. She watches the sand in the distance, lifting & shifting over the expanse of desert. She doesn’t look at him. “Yes. I think it is.”
“Even now?” Keenan sits down. Heat radiates from him, to him, as if his skin is breathing the extreme temperature in and out. “You’re free of the–”
Rika turns to face him. She looks vulnerable. “I still dream of it. I wake up convinced that winter is still inside my veins. Did you know that? What you did–”
“I didn’t do that to you.” Keenan has an unpleasant expression, irritated that she is still acting like this.
“Did you choose me?” Rika has her head tilted as she looks at him. Her short hair is just long enough that it brushes her shoulder as her head tilts. We can see her multi-pierced earlobe. A bar runs horizontally at the top of her ear.
“I did, but–”
“Did I have to carry ice in my body for years, decades, because you made a mistake?”
“Yes, but–”
“So why wouldn’t it bother me to see you?”
He pushes back his hair, frustrated. The copper strands are like solidified sunlight.
She sits down (one foot on the ground, one foot beside her knee on the chair, her bent knee up by her chest) finally, her posture is far more assertive. (As she’s been talking, getting angrier, she’s more forward, less intimidated by him.) Her jeans are ripped in the knee. “So, what do you want?”
“I thought I’d let you know that Donia’s . . . the new Winter Queen.” K’s eye clouded. Rainclouds in the sky form and match his expression, a sudden summer storm rumble over the desert. The shadow of the clouds on the ground stretches and darkens.
“I know.” Rika’s anger lessens; her expression is almost gentle. “She’ll be a good queen. . . and good at standing against you.”
Lightening hits the ground behind her. Rika laughs. Keenan’s pique was always more entertaining than his melancholia.
He looks at her, scowls, & stand. The chairs crumble back to sand as he moves. She doesn’t bother moving, letting herself lean into the sand, watching the streams of sand flow over her leg, into the rips in her jeans. She grins up at him from the desert floor.
His face is emotionless, but lightening jags around them–revealing what his face doesn’t. Still he is solicitous. “If you need anything, we are both there to call upon.” The rain hits, soaking her, but sizzling to steam before it touched him. He adds, “Things will be unstable–”
Wet and sand covered, R sits on the desert floor and laughs at the Summer King. “Ya think?”

STEP #4 THE FINAL DRAFT (excerpt) in paragraph form:

Then she looks up in the same direction Jace had looked. The storm is close enough that she sees a swirling dust devil racing over the ground.
She looks alarmed.
Keenan is in it, coming across the ground in the midst of the dust devil. We see him in the midst of the sand before he is right up at her. Then he is touchably close. Spirals of wind and sand whip out around him even as he stops in front of her.
Rika’s expression is hurt, nervous at seeing him. “Why?”
“Why what?” Keenan has stilled, but the air around him hasn’t. Sand is uplifted.
Rika has a disbelieving expression; her words are careful. “Why do you bother me?”
Keenan makes a gesture and the sand forms into chairs as if they were in a shop. [The chairs look as solid as sandstone cliffs, like rocks with striations. They are at slight angles to each other, as if they were at a small two-person table in a coffee shop.] He isn’t quite posturing, but he is clearly aware of his appearance. Then the sand around him drops as he asks, “Is it such a bother to talk to me?”
Rika steps further away from him. She looks to a rocky cliff in the distance, past the expanse of desert. “Yes. I think it is.”
“Even now?” Keenan sits down. Heat radiates from him, to him, as if his skin is breathing the extreme temperature in and out. “You’re free of the–”
Rika turns to face him. She looks vulnerable. “I still dream of it. I wake up convinced that winter is still inside my veins. What you did–”
“I didn’t do that to you.” Keenan has an unpleasant expression.
“Did you choose me?” Rika has her head tilted as she looks at him. Her short hair is just long enough that it brushes her shoulder as her head tilts. We can see her multi-pierced earlobe. A bar runs horizontally at the top of her ear. “Did you convince me that you loved me?”
“I did, but–”
“Did I carry ice in my body for years because of that mistake?” She steps closer.
“Yes, but–”
“So why wouldn’t it bother me to see you?” She steps even closer and is in his space.
He pushes back his hair, frustrated. The copper strands are like solidified sunlight.
She stares at him up at him. She’s tiny, but fierce. “Look at where we are. Cities are poisonous to me, Keenan. Iron, steel, it leaves me sick . . .”
He doesn’t flinch or back away. “That’s part of being faery. Almost all faeries have that limitation. It’s not–”
She interrupts, “–fair, Keenan. It’s not fair.”
She turns her back and sits down in one of the chairs. (She has one foot on the ground, the other foot beside her knee on the chair so her bent is knee up by her chest) finally, her posture is far more assertive. (As she’s been talking, getting angrier, she’s more forward, less intimidated by him.) Her jeans are ripped in the knee.
“It’s not unusual,” he corrected. “I was going to say it’s not unusual. Faeries are weakened by steel and iron. It’s just the way we always have been.”
“I wasn’t always like this. I was human before you.”
“A long time ago. I can’t take it back.” He reaches out as if he’d touch her. The sand-filled breeze looks ever-so-slightly like fingertips brushing her cheek. “I did love you.”
“That was a long time ago too. And look where it left me . . .” We see the vast desolation of the desert around her. It’s wide open and stark, and she’s small in it.
With irritation, Keenan flicks his hand out. The sand sifts and myriad paths–like unpaved roads–form like patterns stretching across the desert. “So go. You’re far stronger than you admit. You can leave.”
She blushes as she looks away from him and at that distant cliff again. [This is where Jace is.] “What do you want?”
“That’s what I was trying to say before . . .” Keenan scowls. “I’d came to let you know that I’m un-bound and that Donia’s . . . the new Winter Queen.”
Keenan’s eyes clouded. Rainclouds in the sky form and match his expression, a sudden summer storm rumble over the desert. The shadow of the clouds on the ground stretches and darkens.
“I know. We heard when it happened.” Rika’s anger lessens; her expression is almost gentle. “She’ll be a good queen. . . and good at standing against you. She never forgave you at all.”
Lightening hits the ground behind her.
Rika laughs. Keenan’s pique was always more entertaining than his melancholia.
“And you did?” He looks at her, scowls, & stands. The chairs crumble back to sand as he moves.
Rika doesn’t bother moving, letting herself lean into the sand, watching the streams of sand flow over her leg, into the rips in her jeans. She grins up at him from the desert floor. “No, but I haven’t loved you in forever. It makes a difference.”
His face is emotionless, but lightening jags around them–revealing what his face doesn’t.
Still he is solicitous. “If you need anything, we are both there to call upon.”
“Actually Sionnach is here if I need anything,” she murmurs. Then she holds his gaze. “I’m solitary, Keenan. Those of us in the desert . . . we don’t belong to you even now that you are so much stronger. That won’t change.”
“If you need me–”
“There would be a price.” She is rueful. “I’ve paid my dues for your ‘help.’ I learn from my mistakes.”
The rain hits, soaking her, but sizzling to steam before it touched him. He adds, “The Summer Court is stronger, but things will be unstable for now . . . even out here. Not everyone’s happy with the power shift.”
Wet and sand covered, R sits on the desert floor and laughs at the Summer King. “You think? We already know that. What do you really want?”
“To protect you.”
She shakes her head; all signs of laughing are gone. “I don’t need you.”
“I–”
“Faeries don’t lie, Keenan. I can’t lie.” She stands up, brushes the sand from her pants. “I don’t need you. I don’t want you in my life in ANY way.”
“If you make a vow of fealty to me, I can keep you safe.”
“A vow to you?” She gives him a disdainful look. “No thanks.”
“Other solitaries have joined my court . . . It’s not so odd.” Keenan looks earnest, genuine, and eager. “You could talk the others out here and–”
“No. I won’t ask them to join the Summer Court.” She holds his gaze.
Keenan steps closer. Winds spins around them, so it’s as if it’s just the two of them. “I never meant to hurt you. You know me. It’s a simple vow. Then my court can step in if anyone needs–”
“Your court isn’t needed in my desert, Keenan.” Rika gives him a dismissive look. “We handle things differently out here.”
“You’re being foolish, Rika. Letting grudges get in the way.”
She makes a dismissing gesture with her hand and walks away from him, toward the cliff. She knows he’s watching her, can feel the swirls of sand stirring as he resists his anger. Then in a gust of wind, he leaves.
Melodramatic as always, she thinks.
But she looks after him briefly. Even the desert sand, slipping over her skin from errant breezes isn’t warm enough. She shivers.

STEP #5 SOME OF IRENE and LAURA’s (Xian Nu Studios) ART of these sections:

NOTE: Thumnails, pencils, ink, & tones/final (All 3 stages are sent to the editors & to me for feedback & approval. This is done for each and every panel.)

SUMMARY:
Obviously, there are other steps and sub-steps. I had two editors: one at Harper (Anne, who edits my YA) and one at TokyoPop (Paul Morrissey for volume 1). There was a consultant who broke my text into panels, a translator (or several?) since Irene is from Spain. At the end of it all though, what we have is my words transformed into visual by artists I hope to one day meet in person (and with whom I’ve emailed) with the aid of people with whom I had no contact (the consultant and translator), directed by two editors (whom I do know in person).

The story is not required reading to follow the events in the novels. It does fit into the world of the novels. It threads through them (volume one is after Ink Exchange; volume two is simultaneous with Fragile Eternity, but before the fourth novel). It is an opportunity for me to tell a story in the world, but not a full novel. The full text of the manga for all three volumes was between 30,000 and 40,000 words. I could’ve gone even further and drafted it as a novel, but this format was new to me, so I am thrilled to get the chance to try something different. As an admitted art geek (and a chick with absolutely no artistic talent), I was thrilled to see my characters move across the page.

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Thank you Melissa – that was great!

Now for the giveaway:

If you want a chance to see how it all begins, we are giving away ONE copy of Wicked Lovely (the book, not the Manga). The contest is open to residents of the US and Canada; to enter, leave a comment here and will run until Saturday July 25 at 11:59pm. Good luck!

Title: Wicked Lovely – Desert Tales, vol.1, Sanctuary

Author: Melissa Marr (writer) and Xian Nu Studio (illustrator)

Genre: Manga/Young Adult (Fantasy)

Publisher: HarperCollins
Publishing Date: April 21, 2009
Paperback: 176 pages

Stand Alone or series: Volume one of a 3 volume series

Why did I read the book:Melissa Marr is one of my favourite writers and I love her Wicked Lovely series so it was no-brainer that I would be reading this .

Summary: The desert is far away from the schemes of the Faerie Courts—and that’s how Rika likes it. Once a mortal and now a faery, Rika seeks isolation and revels in her ability to appear invisible to humans. Then, she meets him. Artistic and kind, Jayce is the last person Rika wants to hide from.

But change is coming, challenging Rika’s freedom and her new romance, as her past pursues her, even into the heart of the desert. . . .

Review:

Desert Tales – Sanctuary is the first in a 3 volume series of Manga , set in the Wicked Lovely world. It follows Rika, a former Winter Girl, now a Solitary Fey living in the desert. She is independent from any of the Courts and lives a non-eventful life. At the moment, her main interest lies in observing an artistic human boy, Jayce, who comes to the desert for walks and to paint. She carries a torch for the guy but being fey complicates matters and she remains invisible when around him.

But the desert, and the desert fey that inhabit it ,are not unconnected as Rika would hope. The story proves to be not entirely separate from the main events taking place in the main Courts – and this is evidenced when Keenan, the Summer King shows up. With the complicated politics and unstable dynamics of the Summer Court and the Winter Court , Keenan is out to offer protection (and at the same time, gain allies) to the Solitary Fey. There are hard feelings between Keenan and Rika (as it should be) and she refuses to have any connection with the guy. But merely by showing up at the desert the King attracts the attention of the desert fey towards Rika and towards Jayce. And we all know how the fey can be vicious creatures and that propels Rika to become visible in order to protect Jayce and that starts a relationship with him– at the same time that she tries to keep the fey at bay. On top of that, there is Rika’s complex bond with another fey called Sionnach, a guy who seems to have an agenda of his own.

For such a short story there is quite a lot going on here but it could not be different with a writer such as Melissa Marr – there is both what is said and shown and is left unsaid.

Like, the appropriateness of having Rika choosing to live in the desert of all places after being consumed with the winter chill as a previous Winter Girl. Or the pain of what it means to become the Winter Girl – that would only happen to someone that really loved Keenan and if you follow the series, you should know by now how that inevitably ends: in heartbreak and isolation (the bastard). And to have Rika choosing yet again on a path that is far away from being simple as it is far away from being easy. I honestly want to know what happens next and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t completely puzzled by Sionnach.

Plus, the choice alone to follow a former Winter Girl and see what happens to one of these poor girls is poignant in itself and a way of expanding the Wicked Lovely world without necessarily moving the attention from the threads of the main events.

And what better medium to experiment than Manga? I am a fan of the format and I thought the art here to be lovely– in what proved to be a perfect balance of format and content. I loved it and recommend it to fans of the series.

Notable Quotes/ Parts: Rika and Keenan’s reunion and the way he leaves – so typical, I really can’t stand the guy.

If you want to have a look at the art and the first pages, they are available with the “LOOK INSIDE” feature at the Harper Collins’ website:

Additional Thoughts: Stick around, as later today Melissa Marr will be talking about writing the Manga and giving a fantastic insight n the whole process from choosing an artist to perfecting the text. Plus, we will be offering a giveaway of the first book in the Wicked Lovely series.

Verdict: A fantastic addition to the Wicked Lovely world with stunning art and the usual engaging writing by the writer.

Rating: 7 – Very Good

Reading Next: Eternal Kiss, anthology.

Howdy folks! Young Adult Appreciation Month is officially on (check here for our review of Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince movie)! Here’s what you can expect this coming week:

Harper Teen has a fabulous Supernatural Summer promotion, for five titles from five authors. This week, we will be reviewing each of these titles and will have interviews and posts from each of the authors, and even a few giveaways.

Monday: Kelley Armstrong Day

Thea reviews The Awakening and later in the day, interviews Kelley Armstrong about her Darkest Powers series, and on writing Young Adult novels.

Tuesday – Melissa Marr Day

Ana reviews the Wicked Lovely Manga, followed by an exclusive insight from the author about writing the Manga.

Wednesday – Aprilynne Pike Day

Thea reviews the stunning Wings, and Aprilynne Pike talks a bit about her debut novel.

Thursday – Claudia Gray Day

Thea has a double review of books 1 & 2 in the Evernight series, Evernight and Stargazer. Also, we have an interview with the author.

Friday – Kim Harrison Day

Thea reviews favorite author Kim Harrison’s first Young Adult novel Once Dead Twice Shy, followed by a post by Kim Harrison on writing Young Adult novels.

Saturday – A Chat With An Editor

Farrin Jacobs, Executive Editor of HarperCollins Children’s Books talks to us about being a Young Adult editor, and what to expect from Harper Teen in the future.

And that’s it for the first week of our Young Adult Appreciation Month! Don’t forget you can take part in the celebration of all things Young Adult by joining us on a collective festival across blogland – read the details here.

Until tomorrow…

~ Your Friendly Neighborhood Book Smugglers

Another month, another dare.

Every month we dare a book blogger to read a book that is outside their comfort zone and invite them to post their reviews or thoughts here. This time, the victim guest is Jessica who writes the excellent Racy Romance Reviews. As soon as we asked her which genre she does not read and she said YA, we thought of Melissa Marr and decided to dare her to read Wicked Lovely.

So, we warmly welcome Jessica and here is what she has to say:
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Jessica’s review of Wicked Lovely

Ana and Thea challenged me to read a YA, and suggested Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr. Like most avid romance readers, I have occasionally ventured outside the genre to try other books with strong romantic elements, such as urban fantasy, sci fi, suspense, and mystery. But I have resisted the call of the YA. I believed either that a romance between teens would not interest me, or that it would interest me, and I would feel like a dirty old woman (I’m in my late thirties.). I’m happy to report that I failed to consider a third alternative: a chaste, age appropriate YA romance that has all the elements of adult romance that I find compelling, with a strong enough characterization of the teen protagonists that I was never in any danger of wanting to be one of them.

This book was published in 2007, and two others in the series have since come out. I’m going to keep my plot summary brief, since this book is now quite well known. Aislinn, a Catholic high school student, lives in Huntsville, PA with her grandmother. She has the Sight, meaning she can see faeries all around her, even under the glamours they use when they want to be viewed as normal by humans. She follows a set of rules handed down by her grandmother designed to keep her ability hidden from the fey, and spends time with Seth, her tattooed and pierced friend who lives in a series of train car (which is handy, since the fey can’t abide steel).

Unfortunately, Aislinn’s ability to stay out of faery business ends when Keenan, King of Summer, identifies her as his Queen and sets about courting her. Keenan has his own troubles, including his evil mother, the Queen of Winter, who knows her chilling reign will end should Aislinn ascend to the throne, and Donia, the girl he once thought was his queen, who is now just a winter girl, a frosty shadow of her former self, under the thumb of the Winter Queen.

It’s a very scary thing to be aware that there are nonhuman beings in our midst, and even scarier to have the burden of keeping your knowledge a secret. As the book opens, we are thrust into Aislinn’s terrifying world. She has to school herself not reveal her awareness of the faeries by looking at them, starting or maneuvering to avoid them. Imagine walking home, knowing they are following you, but not knowing why, not being able to run for fear of alerting them to your knowledge, but being desperate to run. Even worse, imaging that you can see under their glamour, when they are flirting, or talking with your friends, or enrolling in your school. This is a kind of horror – the horror the totally isolating, dangerous unknown — and I thought it was perfectly realized, engaging me right away in this book.

I was also engaged by Aislinn, who is scared but strong, and doesn’t lose her wry sense of humor. Here’s one characteristic observation:

“The Church might caution against the dangers of the occult, but finding a modern priest who believed in anything supernatural—other than God himself—was about as likely as finding one who’d suggest women should be able to be priests too.”

Maybe it’s also a kind of metaphor in some way for teenage relations. My children have no anxiety at all about social relations: if someone doesn’t want to play, they move on. But I know this innocence won’t last, and in a few years they will experience the precariousness of peer groups and all the rest. They’ll learn the hard way that not everyone can be trusted, that not everyone is who they seem. As Aislinn says, “even if she could somehow stop seeing the fey, a person can’t un-know the truth.”

I thought the portrayal of teen life was dead on. There were the little things, like this line,

“Her lips were blue—not lipstick blue, but corpse blue.”

I never would have thought of blue lipstick! But also the savviness about partying and sex that so many older teens have. The teens in the book did all of those adult things (and most of this behavior was merely alluded to), but often not with good judgment. Sound familiar? I have seen other reviewers criticize Marr for putting these “experienced” teens in a Catholic school and I had to laugh: I started high school in a Catholic girls school, and you know what? After one year I switched to a 1500 student coed public h.s. to get away from the aggressive, oversexed party girls at St. Mary’s Academy so I could study! Obviously, not every Catholic high school is populated with this type, but when people criticize Marr on this point they are tacitly assuming the opposite, and they are wrong.

I also thought Marr’s realization of the faery world was terrific. We don’t spend much time in fey dwellings, and most of the faery encounters are on human turf, so it’s all the more impressive to me that Marr was able to convey so much about the history, alliances, customs, and traditions of the fey. Some have criticized her use of simplistic names and relations, and it is true that there is a very heavy use of the “seasonal model” (summer against winter), as personified by their king and queen, and their appearance and abilities. But if you are going to write a faery story, even an urban faery story, you have to stick to nature. The Winter Queen (not to mention Aislinn’s name) evoked the C.S. Lewis’s White Witch, in both her demeanor and her plans – already underway — to winterfy the world. And, like Lewis, or Grimm, or anyone who utilizes this set of themes, they serve as a mutually recognizable backdrop onto which you can put whatever you want.

Once Aislinn’s Sight becomes known, that element of suspense is lost, but a new one takes its place: can she resist the Summer King? As Marr describes him, he is everything that looks, and smells, and feels, and evokes all the good things the average human can imagine. Here’s one description:

“As she watched Keenan walk toward her, Aislinn saw a fleeting image of sunlight rippling over water, bouncing off buildings, strange flickers of warmth and beauty that made her want to run toward him.”

You begin by wondering how anybody at all is enticed to becomes a faery, and by the point in the book when Aislinn attends a carnival with the King, dancing with him until the wee hours of the morning, an amazing scene, a beautiful and pivotal and heartbreaking one, you wonder how she or anybody can possibly resist.

This again, I read as a metaphor for the temptations teenagers face to determine the difference between changing into your adult version and changing into someone else entirely. Once the King identifies Aislinn, she has to choose whether to refuse the test and become a Summer Girl, basically a member of Keenan’s harem, a point to which I shall return, or take the test. (I note here that one annoyance I had with the book was that I was well over halfway through Wicked Lovely before Donia explained these basic facts to Aislinn, and the reader. I appreciated my ignorant suspense for about half that time, but eventually it felt forced to me.) Just as we cannot refuse to grow up, Aislinn cannot refuse this choice. Even a nonchoice is a choice, with its own consequences, a painful fact of adult life that Marr captures very well.

I’ve read some comparisons to Twilight, namely regarding the passivity of the heroine. I think there’s a difference between being out of control and being passive. Being a teen is being out of control, both in our own feelings and emotions, and in the world around you, and that’s what Aislinn was. But, if anything, the message of the book is that young women have to regain that control by thinking for themselves and solve their own problems. As Donia puts it,

“Your modernity is your best weapon. Use it. Show him that you are entitled to some sort of choice. You know what he is now, so demand that he talk to you. Negotiate for what control you can wrest from him.”

Although the Summer King has some powers, they are “bound” by his mother for most of the book, a metaphor I think I don’t need to explain. And although Aislinn relies on her mortal boyfriend Seth, the strong characters, the ones who ultimately have the power and make the decisions in Wicked Lovely are the women. Aislinn and Donia are contrasted sharply with the Summer Girls, those who decided to exist for the pleasure of Aislann and his men, a theme I thought was a bit of a harsh and unexplored actually, who

“believe they’ve won. … The girls were happy: they didn’t see their dependence as a burden.”

I wonder who the Summer Girls are in our world?

Not everything worked for me in this book. Seth, while wonderful, was a bit too perfect himself. Never a wrong move, always just waiting for Aislinn to show up so he could help her. I also felt that the secondary characters like the Winter Queen and Aislinn’s grandmother were quite one dimensional. There was a twist near the end which I did not see coming, that was truly grotesque, the implications of which were not explored. And I thought Aislinn’s transition from being terrified of the faery world to embracing her role as Queen occurred abruptly, without a corresponding change in character. Finally, the ending wraps things up in a bow that seemed a little too neat: there was a tension all along between the really horrific elements of the story and the romantic ones that I felt was not resolved perfectly.

But I really enjoyed this book. More importantly, it’s the first book in a while that I could not put down. I thank the Book Smugglers for inviting me to read and review it!

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You are very welcome Jessica! Glad you liked the book – hopefully you will pick up the others and enjoy them too!

Next Month: We dared Tia from the Fantasy Debut Blog and she will be reading a Horror book which we have yet to pick. We do know this though: she also pulled a Graeme and dared us back to read The Once and Future King by T.H. White!