I was a little lost because I read this one before I read the first book [b:Wicked Lovely|305234|Wicked Lovely (Wicked Lovely, #1)|Melissa Marr|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173568263s/305234.jpg|296240], so I was a bit lost and parts clicked when I read Wicked Lovely after. But I think that my perception of Leslie was definately better than it would have been had I read Wicked Lovely first. She was seen as a more 3 dimensional character for me. This is a wonderful book, and I very much enjoyed it. I like the concept, and I'm a sucker for Faeries of any kind. ( )

2020 ( )

Once again, you don't read this series for its spectacular writing or even its ability to neatly start and finish a story - its purely for the theme and perhaps the characters. In this case, for me, it was for the lovely Niall and Irial, two men whom I would personally love to spend some more time with.

The main character, Leslie, wasn't the strong lead I was hoping for, and her fixation on a tattoo 'changing her life' didn't really feel plausible for me.

The flow of Ink Exchange was really erratic and seemed to jump all over the place at the expense of the characters beginning to sound 'inauthentic' - the dialogue became merely a means to quickly steer the story to a particular scene or direction that inevitably, didn't really lead anywhere. It was practically over before it began, leaving me unsatisfied with the 'ending', if you can call it that.

I also felt the love connections in this book were more one sided, whereas the relationship between Aislinn (who, to me, sounded far less mature and queen-like in this story than she did in her own novel and wasn't a very likeable character in this either) and Seth felt genuine and un-forced. Personally, I felt Niall and Irial deserved more of a woman to fall in love with.

In all honesty, the only reason I liked this book was because of the theme (faeries, a touch of passionate violence and slightly-forbidden love) and because of Niall (my leading man) and Irial, whom I may or may not have slightly fallen in love with (they remind me quite of bit of the Salvatore brothers from the Vampire Diaries I read back when I was a tween)...

There is so much potential for stories told with these characters and their histories, but this particular one missed the mark. Three days later, I may have forgotten the plot line, but I haven't forgotten the 'faery world' or the characters in it - apart from Leslie who made no impact on me at all. ( )

This was another one that I started as an audio book and got so into the story I had to finish it in book form. I like Melissa Marr's fairy world, and I really loved how this one ended. I had a friend tell me I really only needed to read the first one in this series (Wicked Lovely), but I'm glad I moved on to the next. Marr's characters are sympathetic and unpredictable. Refreshingly with this one, the big problem for the female protagonist isn't how to resolve a love triangle.
I thought the interval towards the end with Irial went on a little longer than it needed to, but other than that, I have no complaints. ( )

This second book in the series shifts focus away from Aislinn, Seth, and Keenan and instead puts one of Aislinn's friends center stage as she unwittingly enters the business and awareness of the fairies when she chooses a special pattern for her first tattoo.

The problem with talking about books in a series is that you can't...talk about them without giving things away. So I'll just say that I enjoyed this one nearly as much as the first, and I particularly liked how abuse gets treated in both a read and a metaphorical way. ( )