I have no idea why I’ve seen so many bad reviews of this book. They had me a little worried, sometimes authors lose what made their first book or series great, but this wasn’t a disappointment at all. Seven Black Diamonds is an amazing book. It’s not as beautiful in its lore and imagery as Wicked Lovely, sure, but I found the characters, lore, story, plot, and writing all to be excellent. Melissa Marr has had my heart since I picked up my sister’s abused copy of Wicked Lovely as a young teen (which remains a favorite series of mine) and I’m very happy to know that her skills in the fantasy genre are as sharp as ever. She is one of the few people that can execute both the topic of faeries and the genre of urban fantasy in a way that is lovely and engaging with worthwhile characters. I rarely find authors who can execute either well. She’s also proven that she’s skilled enough to rework a broad topic—faeries—and make it something new and interesting, not just a knock off of her previous work; the faeries’ history is reworked and altered, the setting is set in the future and features a more polluted earth and instead of the faeries being at war with each other and feeling supreme over humans in spite of it all, this book features a united faerie world (with a little internal dissent) that is fighting a slow war with humanity for the perceived death of a the royal heir and the slow pollution of the earth. Overall, my lack of familiarity with this world made it an enjoyable, refreshing read that was still enjoyable and easy to follow due to familiarity with Marr’s style (which, I want to mention, contains alternating points of view in the third person so we get several layers to the story from different angles. I personally find this to be a pro and not a con). I’m very happy with this book and I’m excited to get my hands on the next one: One Blood Ruby. Five stars from me! Like, the sole fact that this review is this short is proof of my love for it.(The following sections might contain spoilers! This is less review and more a notes section)I also want to mention that this book is definitely benefiting from the changing social order: there’s far more diversity in the cast (several main characters of people of color, the Seelie court faeries have dark skin too so are coded as colored, not white and we have at least two non-straight characters) and we even get a brief mention of some social issues (racial profiling is mentioned and the topic of gayness is covered for a moment here and there, wherein it’s said that same-sex relationships are acceptable in the faerie world and we get reminded that homophobia is a problem amongst humanity) and there’s some general “protect the environment” messages and anti-terrorism messages that basically say “people should do better about protecting the health and wellbeing of the earth, but killing all humans through acts of terrorism is not the answer.” I was happy about all this stuff; it’s a show of progress to see social development in books. Two thumbs up from me!But for anyone who has triggers: this book does deal with some faerie incest. Like there’s no actual sexual acts happening or true desire or intimacy or anything of that nature, but like the one guy didn’t know he was related to Lily and thought they were going to be together and kissed her but then he found out and was disgusted then like willing to overlook it then he dropped it altogether when it was clear to him that he could be with the girl he truly loved without putting anyone in danger of death (it was kind of weird how he was like “we’re only HALF cousins this could still work” but luckily Lily was like flat out: no stop it right now) and then the other guy is Lily’s uncle who tries to marry her for political reasons. But I know even the slightest mention of this can be an issue for some so I wanted to clarify the content and its context.