Mortal Skin

This book had a ton of elements I love in a fantasy novel. I'm very much into Faerie and it was great to read Mayne's take on it while enjoying that they kept a lot of classic elements and “rules”. This was a book I didn't want to put down and went through the over 300 pages in a single day.

While I absolutely adored this book and am excited to go to the next in the series, I was left with a lot of questions. This book ends on a pretty devastating cliffhanger but the few issues I had with this book came before that. Like almost all MM books, there is a lack of communication here between the male leads that results in a lot of misunderstandings. Here, we use can use the excuse of magic that is considered canon in Faerie lore - Folk/Fae cannot lie, cannot defy vows or promises, and use wordplay to skirt around both. However, the one point in the book where I wanted to throttle Ash was when Lonan tells him he's been all Ash's animal companions over the years. This is a huge bombshell Mayne drops towards the end of the book before the big climax but Ash just... accepts it. And then they have sex. Well, Ash, you should have asked a lot more questions. This means that Lonan has seen you grow up as a Fae literally your same age. So when you were 10 he was 10 and was creeping as a moth outside your window? And you have no further questions? You've known Lonan for, maybe, 6 whole months but he's known you nearly your entire life and you have nothing more to say? Bizarre and stupid. As the book went on but before this reveal, I was hoping the cat and wolf were different than Lonan, but maybe "working" for him. Their actions just didn't match up and Lonan's excuse that "it's easier to act differently" as those animals didn't make total sense with what we read throughout the book. For being told over and over again not to trust literally anyone, he puts his trust in Lonan very easily and you have to keep in mind that all this takes place in a single season. I guess Ash isn't the sharpest crayon in the box.

Despite that, Ash as a character is pretty complex but I just feel that he was a bit too accepting and complacent. I empathize more with Lonan, even after the ending. He was as helpless as Ash because of the power his mother holds over the entire Unseelie court. Ash was the one who didn't ask the right questions or any at all and kept his own council.

Also, where's Coam? Who does he work for? Why was he so giving with Ash, sex or no? I hope we learn more about his motivations in the next book.

Besides all that, still absolutely loved this and can't wait to go through the series, and I plan to read more of Mayne's other work.