March 30, 2018
Reviewed by: Rabid Reads
Lilywhite Abernathy lives a complicated existence.
She's the daughter of a crime boss--the crime boss--yet she's also his heir apparent. Her peers, both male and female, don't know how to treat her, and can't relate to her even if they could.
Yet part of her responsibility to her father is to gracefully interact with those peers. A responsibility her father makes triply difficult by watching her like a guard dog.
Hard to socialize with people who already don't know what to do with you, when your father the HEP big criminal is watching your every move, poised to rain down terror and fury at the slightest misstep.
Then there's the fact that she's part faery. More than part, truth be told, which it must be, b/c lies are physically painful for Lily to tell (b/c part faery).
It's almost too complicated.
And I haven't even gotten to her rock star crush yet.
BUT.
Somehow it works. I'm not sure if it's b/c subconscious allowances made for YA, or b/c Marr is just that good of a storyteller, but even it's the former, the key word is "subconscious."
The faery Queen of Blood and Rage has declared war on the humans. Part of her strategy includes training up baby fae in her favored guerrilla tactics, using their handlers to teach them how to use their magic, after strategically placing them in sleeper cells. At birth.
Once they reach an age and level of training dreamed useful by Queen, they're called active.
BUT.
These cells of barely adult, maybe part, maybe full fae, but regardless, they've been raised by humans in the human world . . . Which means their loyalty is divided, so even if they obey the commands of a murderous Faery Queen, they aren't 100% devoted to the cause . . .
They have doubts . . . But their fear of Queen keeps them obedient.
Enter Lilywhite (whose name I scoffed at until one of her new friends started calling her Lilyblack), meant to be the seventh and final member of Queen's flagship cell, her black diamonds.
Except beyond the fact that her mother was one, Lily knows nothing about her ties to Faery. She's spent her whole life hiding her secret--having even a drop of fae blood is enough to be imprisoned (b/c WAR).
She's also been raised to be a leader, to question, to make her own choices . . . So being told that she owes her loyalty to Queen, whom she's never met and has good reason to think is CRAZY, doesn't immediately make her fall in line with the others.
And suddenly the world is full of possibilities.
You: What does that mean?
Me: READ THE BOOK.
"The book" being SEVEN BLACK DIAMONDS by Melissa Marr, the faetastical first installment of her new YA urban fantasy series. Marr says in her acknowledgments that her three word pitch was, "faery sleeper cells." It worked for her editor, and it worked for me. There was no struggle to dive deeply into this latest faery endeavor, to roll around in it, losing time, leaving me wondering if perhaps I'd stumbled into Faery as well . . .
Highly recommended.
Pre-review:
What do you suppose a Queen of Blood and Rage looks like?
Lilywhite Abernathy lives a complicated existence.
She's the daughter of a crime boss--the crime boss--yet she's also his heir apparent. Her peers, both male and female, don't know how to treat her, and can't relate to her even if they could.
Yet part of her responsibility to her father is to gracefully interact with those peers. A responsibility her father makes triply difficult by watching her like a guard dog.
Hard to socialize with people who already don't know what to do with you, when your father the HEP big criminal is watching your every move, poised to rain down terror and fury at the slightest misstep.
Then there's the fact that she's part faery. More than part, truth be told, which it must be, b/c lies are physically painful for Lily to tell (b/c part faery).
It's almost too complicated.
And I haven't even gotten to her rock star crush yet.
BUT.
Somehow it works. I'm not sure if it's b/c subconscious allowances made for YA, or b/c Marr is just that good of a storyteller, but even it's the former, the key word is "subconscious."
The faery Queen of Blood and Rage has declared war on the humans. Part of her strategy includes training up baby fae in her favored guerrilla tactics, using their handlers to teach them how to use their magic, after strategically placing them in sleeper cells. At birth.
Once they reach an age and level of training dreamed useful by Queen, they're called active.
BUT.
These cells of barely adult, maybe part, maybe full fae, but regardless, they've been raised by humans in the human world . . . Which means their loyalty is divided, so even if they obey the commands of a murderous Faery Queen, they aren't 100% devoted to the cause . . .
They have doubts . . . But their fear of Queen keeps them obedient.
Enter Lilywhite (whose name I scoffed at until one of her new friends started calling her Lilyblack), meant to be the seventh and final member of Queen's flagship cell, her black diamonds.
Except beyond the fact that her mother was one, Lily knows nothing about her ties to Faery. She's spent her whole life hiding her secret--having even a drop of fae blood is enough to be imprisoned (b/c WAR).
She's also been raised to be a leader, to question, to make her own choices . . . So being told that she owes her loyalty to Queen, whom she's never met and has good reason to think is CRAZY, doesn't immediately make her fall in line with the others.
And suddenly the world is full of possibilities.
You: What does that mean?
Me: READ THE BOOK.
"The book" being SEVEN BLACK DIAMONDS by Melissa Marr, the faetastical first installment of her new YA urban fantasy series. Marr says in her acknowledgments that her three word pitch was, "faery sleeper cells." It worked for her editor, and it worked for me. There was no struggle to dive deeply into this latest faery endeavor, to roll around in it, losing time, leaving me wondering if perhaps I'd stumbled into Faery as well . . .
Highly recommended.
Pre-review:
What do you suppose a Queen of Blood and Rage looks like?
