Desert Tales

Desert Tales by Melissa Marr, 262 pages

This is a novelization that was originally done in graphic novel format detailing what happened to a character from the Wicked Lovely series. Rika was a Winter Girl for a long time. Unable to unlock The Summer King’s power and become his queen, she was forced to carry ice and snow in her body until another girl came along to take place. When that finally happened, Rika chose to move to the Mojave Desert and be as far from winter as possible. No longer human, but not feeling accepted as fey, she mostly kept to herself, except for Sionnach, her one friend and Alpha of the desert fey. Her peace and solitude may not last however, because the Summer King has found his Queen, come into power, and seeks the desert fey as subjects. He wants Rika to become their Alpha and swear their loyalty to him. Rika wants nothing to do with him or fairy politics. I liked this better than most of the rest of the series. I think the other books almost have too much packed into them so I had to worry about so many people and situations that I found I couldn’t care enough about any of them. This story was pretty straightforward and didn’t have a lot of subplots. Anyone who has liked the series will want to read this also, but even people who found the series cumbersome but usually like fantasy will probably like this book.