And despite every bit of logic she possessed, Tam watched him back. Irial-a faery whose name she’d heard the others whisper as if it were a prayer-watched her with a different kind of studiousness. He was the real complication in Tam’s life. That meant, for now, pretending she didn’t hear invisible men discussing her. Other than that, she was merely Tam, a woman who wanted to find a place in the world and maybe a bit of comfort if she could. Thelma Foy suspected she’d be forgettable if not for her hair and her mouth, which was fuller than most and noticeable because of her habit of saying the wrong thing, the audacious or dangerous thing. Her curves were there in outline, but she was neither lush nor delicate. Maybe if money wasn’t scarce, she’d have voluptuous hips and breasts, but the softness of a woman required excess money for foods that were too dear for her to buy. Wealthy women were able to be delicate.Īnd the other kind of women, those who worked over near Canal Street selling favors, were allowed to be luscious. She’d earned every muscle though, taking in wash when she needed and working her art as often as she could. Her hands rough from working with metal or laundry. Plain, perhaps, maybe even a little too fit for a woman. 'If you like their sort.'Īnd Tam felt self-conscious, awkward and embarrassed. The creature beside the maned faery stared at her as if Tam was ghastly. She’s a pretty girl, a lion-maned man purred. Invisible to the eyes of the city’s mortals, faeries slithered and danced along the edge of the city where the water moved and the iron-laced buildings ended.

The inhuman ones who strolled the French Quarter were even more remarkable.

A woman with hair that seemed as delicate and white as if spiders had woven it walked arm-in-arm with an elegant man with a bone topped cane. To protect her, Irial must risk a war he can't win-or surrender the first mortal woman he's loved.Voices rose and fell in the streets of the French Quarter. Unbeknownst to Tam, she is the prize in a centuries-old fight between Summer Court and Winter Court. Too soon, New Orleans is filling with faeries who are looking for her, and Irial is the only one who can keep her safe. So, Tam doesn't respond when they trail thorn-crusted fingertips through her hair at the French Market or when the Dark King sings along with her in the bayou.īut when the Dark King, Irial, rescues her, Tam must confront everything she thought she knew about faeries, men, and love. Thelma Foy, a jeweler with the Second Sight in iron-bedecked 1890s New Orleans, can see through the glamours faeries wear to hide themselves from mortals, but if her secret were revealed, the fey would steal her eyes, her life, or her freedom. In this prequel to the international bestselling Wicked Lovely series, the Faery Courts collide a century before the mortals in Wicked Lovely are born.

Cold iron heart by melissa marr