The Summer Marked by Rebekah L Purdy

Published: September 22nd, 2015

Publisher: Entangled Teen

Pages: 304

Copy: From Publisher

Summary: Goodreads

The sequel to the chilling Winter People returns to the world of Faerie, and is a romantic and enchanting follow-up.

Salome left humankind behind to be with her boyfriend, Gareth, in the Kingdom of Summer. But now forces of darkness are rising. Her happily-ever-after is coming apart, and the Kingdom is on the brink of war. 

Newly-single Kadie Byers is on her way home for Thanksgiving, imagining a visit filled with hot chocolate, a hot guy for a little rebound action, and some girl time with her bestie, Salome. Except she receives a message from Salome with two important words: PLEASE HURRY.

When Kadie rushes to help Salome, she’s ripped from the human world and pulled into the kingdoms of Faerie, where she's shocked to learn that Salome's monsters are real, and that she's now at the mercy of one extremely vengeful Winter Queen... 

Now both Salome and Kadie must find a way to survive the deadly chaos...or lose themselves to Winter's deadly, icy grasp

My thoughts:

I have to say that I am very conflicted about 'The Summer Marked".  I enjoyed 'The Winter People', although I can't find my review of it, and I was looking forward to the continuation of Salome's story.  And I must be honest, I loved the story.  I also liked the characters, several of them quite a lot in fact - Etienne being an example -  but what I really didn't like was the 'voice' of the characters, or their language if you prefer. It was a bit like nails on a chalkboard after a while.  I just couldn't picture centuries old fae saying things like 'Wow, that's cool', ' Thanks a lot', 'yeah' or 'listen'. I almost gave up at one point and dnf'd, but I decided that the plot deserved my perseverance.

Now after much introspection I have come to realize that this is a purely personal thing.  I am not, nor have been for many years, a young adult, and this is very definitely a young adult book.  I am also certain that no young adults reading this book will have any problem whatsoever with the language, but unfortunately for me, it really took the shine off an excellent story.  I found myself re-writing dialogue in my head as I was reading it.  I'm not sure what that say's about me exactly!

So, the story... great story.  Lots going on, and for the most part the pace kept up - just a couple of slower sections, but they didn't last too long.  It was nice to see Kadie's adventures, which were decidedly gruesome, and it was interesting to see how terribly she was manipulated by Griselle.  I'm really interested to see what happens there in the final part of the trilogy.  We are finding out more and more about Salome and her mysterious background and powers and things are getting very complex where she is concerned.  I loved her interactions with Darach, not to mention Gareth and Nevin and the situation is becoming increasing fraught. 

There is a lot going on, and 'The Summer Marked' very nicely set everything up for a final showdown with Winter.  In a nutshell, I enjoyed 'The Summer Marked' and I will definitely read the sequel, but ........

The Winter People by Rebekah L. Purdy

Published: February 11th, 2014

Publisher: Doubleday

Pages: 317

Copy: Library

Summary: Goodreads

The New York Times bestselling author of Promise Not to Tellreturns with a simmering literary thriller about ghostly secrets, dark choices, and the unbreakable bond between mothers and daughters . . . sometimes too unbreakable.

West Hall, Vermont, has always been a town of strange disappearances and old legends. The most mysterious is that of Sara Harrison Shea, who, in 1908, was found dead in the field behind her house just months after the tragic death of her daughter, Gertie. Now, in present day, nineteen-year-old Ruthie lives in Sara's farmhouse with her mother, Alice, and her younger sister, Fawn. Alice has always insisted that they live off the grid, a decision that suddenly proves perilous when Ruthie wakes up one morning to find that Alice has vanished without a trace. Searching for clues, she is startled to find a copy of Sara Harrison Shea's diary hidden beneath the floorboards of her mother's bedroom. As Ruthie gets sucked deeper into the mystery of Sara's fate, she discovers that she's not the only person who's desperately looking for someone that they've lost. But she may be the only one who can stop history from repeating itself. 

Calling all fae fans.  You don't want to miss this one.  Without rehashing the complete story, the highlights are - Salome has sever phobias about winter.  Enter 3 (yep three) guys, Colton, Nevin and Gareth, who all claim to have her best interest at heart.  You just know that she is going to end up with one of them, but which one ?  I called it fairly early on and got it right.  There is a family curse here, that family members are forbidden to talk about, and Salome must solve the puzzle on her own.  Kudoz to Salome for eventually working out the mystery, 'cuz I couldn't, at least not completely anyway.  To be honest I think one of the very few things I didn't like about this one was the main characters name.  Salome sounded just a little too exotic for the setting of the story for me, but I did enjoy the character. 

I loved hearing about the fae and I loved watching Salome trying to conquer her phobias.  I was a little puzzled occasionally by what seemed a little like over-reaction, but then I've never had voices in my head, have you? I would like to have seen a little more reaction from the fae when Salome forgot to leave out te food and trinkets, after all it was made out to seem incredibly important tin the beginning, but I don't remember any consequences when she didn't do it.

This was a lovely mystery to unravel, the hot guys were really gorgeous, the romance was nicely handled, and all in all I really enjoyed it.  A must-read for fans of April-Lynne Pike 's 'Wings' series.

NOTE  Did anyone notice that I had the wrong book cover up for about a month? I guess I was having a bad day.  Sorry Ms. Purdy.