Faerie

Time for yet another confession. I love faerie stories. Notice the spelling. I'm not talking about fairy tales, but rather, faerie tales. Celtic mythology, although I really know very little about it, really appeals to me. Stories of the ancient Celtic gods, of the Seelie and Unseelie courts, of kelpies and brownies, all these are really appealing to me. I've recently finished reading three YA books that tell stories of faerie, as well as reading a most definitely adult book of faerie. Wondrous Strange and Darklight are the first two books in a trilogy by Lesley Livingstone that revolve around Kelly, a young actress who discovers that she is the long lost daughter of Auberon, king of the faeries. I really liked Wondrous Strange, but was not as impressed with Darklight. The premise of these stories is linked to Shakespeare stories, and I found it worked really well with the first story, but was weaker in the second. The story just didn't stand up. That's when I was introduced to Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr.

One of the women in my course told me that Wicked Lovely was a much better book than Wondrous Strange, and boy, was she right. It tells the story of Aislinn, who attracts the attention of the Keenan, the Summer King. It is a much darker story, but in the end, it was much more satisfying. I can't wait to read the next book(s) in the series.

I think I'd like to read more stories about faerie in the past. The books I've been reading have all had faeries in the modern world; I want to know where the stories came from. I need to look up some Irish/Celtic mythology. I want to know where the stories came from. I know that Shakespeare is the one who changed our perceptions of fairies, but I'd like to know what they were like before.