Cold Iron Heart

Strong writing with an ok story. Was not entirely enthralled. Did not like back and forth use of real name Thelma versus nickname Tam. Would have preferred constant use of one or the other. Too many references to sex work and not wanting a husband or kids in the start of the story. Always a fan of Melissa Marr and her creativity.

Literally obsessed with the Dark King and this series!

I still love the world of Wicked Lovely. The way Marr writes faeries just works for me, and I find the dark court particularly fascinating. It also provided more context behind why some of the characters act the way they do in the main WL series, which was appreciated. That being said, it wasn't perfect.

First, the writing. I usually like Melissa Marr's writing style, but there were two big problems here. Typos/grammar errors (which honestly isn't a big deal to me, it just could have used a better editor) and repetition. Especially in the first half of the story, the same points get made a lot. Tam would have worked in a brothel, except for that she has to avoid sexual relationships with men because she can't risk having a child inherit her ability to see faeries. I get that her fear of pregnancy is an important character trait. But sometimes that dead horse known as agressive foreshadowing needs to be left in peace.

We get more insight into Irial and Niall's pre-series relationship here, and a look at why Niall never fitted into the summer court (because he was already declared the heir to the dark court, and words mean things with fae), which is always appreciated. I am, afterall, still nirial trash. But reading Wicked Lovely content as an adult makes me more aware of the trash part of that statement. When Niall is injured by the winter queen, Keenan secretly brings Irial to the Summer Court to heal him. This involves kissing Niall while he's unconscious. Niall has no knowledge of this agreement between Keenan and Irial, and between that, his backstory with Iri, and the fact that Irial admits Niall wouldn't consent to the healing if he knew about it... I don't know, it just feels kind of creepy to me. Creepy that makes sense within the context of the world (good ol' blue and orange fae morality), but somewhat creepy nonetheless.

We finally get confirmation in this book that Irial isn't white (he's described as "dark skinned" and "creole"); that's great, but why did it take 10 years?

I liked a lot about this story, it contained many of the classic tropes of a fairie romance. Marr is one of the original writers who incorporated fae into YA and it was so nice to revisit her world. I still remember reading Wicked Lovely for the first time and being unable to put it down! However, the last time I read it was years ago. I thought I remembered enough about Wicked Lovely to work things out and that turned out to be partly true.

Spoiler

Up until about the 80% mark, I felt that I was keeping track of everything. Then there is a time skip to the future, where I immediately realized that I had no memory of SO MUCH of the Wicked Lovely series. That’s really due to time since I personally last read it and not at all a reflection on the series or this prequel.

Overall, you can definitely enjoy this prequel story- if you’ve never read Wicked Lovely, if you’re a long-time fan, OR if you think you remember more about the Wicked Lovely series than you actually do.