Ink Exchange

The novel Ink Exchange is the second novel by Melissa Marr set in the mysterious world of faery. It is a companion novel to her bestseller Wicked Lovely, in which readers are first introduced to the mysterious world of faery.

Leslie is a teenage girl. she is trying to live a normal life, but since her mother has left the family, her father has become a chronic drunk and her brother a druggie. She finds herself working hard to pay the bills, having almost no money for herself. Her brother has even used her to help him get money. Leslie feels that she needs a symbol of something that is hers and hers alone. Therefore, she goes to one of the tattoo artists in town, someone she has come to know pretty well after looking at tattoos for several months. Feeling that she needs something out of the ordinary, she chooses a tattoo from his private collection, one that will belong to her and only to her. But little does she know that others are interested in the same tattoo and as a result, her. She has no idea how much the tattoo will actually change her life.

Irial is the king of the dark fey. The fey live in the same world as the mortals, yet they have their secrets and strange habits, for they are not always visible to humans. The dark fey have a strange need. They do not have emotions and they must feed off of the emotions of fey. Yet the emotions must be dark not light and happy. A peace has settled now between the Winter and Summer courts so the sinister emotions that the former winter queen, Beira, so readily channeled they are starving and weak. Irial must find another way to feed off of others in pain, like the mortals, in order to prevent a war in which all the odds would be against his court. So he prepares to connect Leslie to him through the tattoo that she is about to receive. once she is bound to him, he will be able to feed off of her emotions and the emotions to the mortals near her will be channeled through him to her.

But their are two little factors that he did not count on when he chose Leslie for his girl. One was that her friend Aislinn was queen of the Summer Court and that she would do everything in her power to help her friend. The second is the presence of another fey, Niall, in Leslie's life. Niall has worked in the Summer Court as an advisor to the king for nine centuries, but he had a previous history with Irial in the Winter Court. He becomes very attracted to Leslie as he guards her like Aislinn has asked. Inside, he wars with his desire to have her close to him like he used to do with mortals and his consciousness telling him not to hurt her. He remains true to Leslie throughout the novel, even after she has been claimed by Irial.

I would strongly recommend this book to any teenager. Its a great read and it will keep you interested every moment of the novel. Go and read it instead of sitting here in front of the computer.