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Aislinn has had the Sight all her life, and it’s always been something she’s feared. But when the glowing Keenan approaches her, in full glamour, in a place most faeries can’t enter, her fear achieves a whole new level. Overhearing the deathly-looking girl outside tell her to run while she can didn’t do much to help either, since she wasn’t supposed to be able to hear it anyway. When the fey start treading ground on her safe places, following her, showing up at school, at the train yard, leaving her no safe haven, she knows she can’t take it any more. Her Grams, always protective, is going to lock her in the house at the rate things are progressing, but she can’t hide the truth forever either. Still, she’s determined to try it her own way first.
While originally repulsed by Keenan when he first approached her, she was also inexplicably drawn to him, and it’s become clear he isn’t going to go away. Inside school or out, he’s a constant presence, and the effort to ignore him, not to touch him, is becoming too much. Time to change the rules a little. Try it a new way. Try playing friendly and find out what they want. So long as her Sight stays hidden, she can even spy for herself, eavesdropping on invisible faeries who assume they can’t be seen or heard.
Unable to go it alone, Aislinn has confided in Seth. Afraid she’d lose him, that he wouldn’t be able to believe her, she was much relieved when he took the news in stride. Still newly aware of this other world, Seth, her best friend (and more if she were to be honest with herself) is not entirely keen on her plan, but agrees to go along. So long as part of the plan is attempting to get him the Sight as well, so he can better assist.
Unfortunately, as well as Ash’s plan works, or seems to, it also changes everything. While pretending to give Keenan what he wants, she is giving him what he wants. From the moment she was chosen, her mortality began to slip away, and after a night of fey revelry and good, she can no longer pretend she doesn’t see it. How she’s becoming like him.
Desperate to find a way to undo it, Ash turns to Donia, the Winter Girl, hoping for an answer she knows doesn’t exist. And Donia can only confirm her worst fears. She has only two choices. Summer Girl, or Summer Queen. And she’s begun to feel it. She knows she’s her. So how to coexist? How to be what Keenan needs, and not lose everything she loves?
The stakes grow even more dire when the Winter Queen takes Seth captive. When Ash learns that her mother had also been chosen by Keenan, and rather than face the choice, made an even more drastic decision. A decision she knows won’t save her. All she can do is accept who she is, and make the best of it. Do what no girl before has. Meet Keenan half way. Bring her own demands to the table. As a job, Summer Queen seems feasible. Overwhelming, but potentially even fun.
This is a really interesting new twist on the Faery Tale, and I really enjoyed reading it, even with all the heart-wrenching, not knowing what would become of Aislinn and Seth when all was said and done. Highly recommended.
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When I started reading, I immediately regretted having read Tithe and Valiant so long ago. Although it’s probably more all the stories I read in between that filled my head up so that I forgot some of the important pieces to this one. But once the story starts to pick up, you get past what you might not remember.
After a brief prologue explaining Roiben’s beginnings at the Unseelie Court, we jump to his present, where he’s about to be crowned its King. Immediately after his coronation, things take a turn for the worse. Kaye, egged on by some ill-wishing faeries, makes a declaration–something she doesn’t fully understand–and Roiben sets her an impossible task, which she takes to mean he doesn’t love her. Of course he means it in an entirely different way, but since they can’t talk until she completes her task, there’s no great way to discover that fact. Shortly after this, the court is attacked and must flee.
Back in the human side of things, Corny has gotten himself cursed, and Kaye has informed her mother that she’s a changeling and is really a pixie, not a human girl. The result is not quite what she had hoped, which leads she and Corny to take off in search of the Fixer, who’s said to be able to lead them to Silarial, who has requested an audience with Kaye.
Upon arriving at the Bright Court, Kaye quickly realizes that what Silarial wants is her help in controlling Roiben, which Kaye could provide, as the one living being to know his true name. She has absolutely no intention of using it against him that way, of course.
After a lot of unwanted adventure, and a few further mishaps, the gang figures out a few key answers, and stumbles upon some good luck. Will it be enough to save the day?
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March 15th, 2007
8:37 am
Book Review, Staff Favorites
california, death/loss, faeries, fantasy, francesca lia block, friendship, high school, motion pictures, realistic, ya fiction
Rating:
This is the book that started my obsession with Francesca Lia Block. After I read it, on a friend’s recommendation, I went out and bought all the rest of her books out at the time.
Violet wants to make movies. She views all of her life through eyes trained to this purpose. And while she’s had episodes that would add to a script, she finds her life mostly lacking in the requisite conflict and love interest categories. She also has no one to work with.
And then she spots Claire. Blonde, unknowingly pretty, surrounded by jerks. Violet comes to her rescue, and they become immediate friends. A new sensation for both of them. Violet is generally misunderstood, disliked and feared. Claire has never fit in.
While she doesn’t see life the way Violet does, she’s eager to try to help with the movie. And so the adventures begin. A trip to a transvestite bar, an underground concert, where Violet makes off with the lead singer, who spurns her, though she manages to turn it to her advantage.
She takes a job as a receptionist with an agent, who agrees in turn to help her with her script. Instead, he gives her a new story, and in the end, her movie becomes something much different than her original intent.
Claire, cut out of much of Violet’s life and time, is feeling lost. She has her poetry class–originally a joint venture with Claire, and her poetry teacher, but it isn’t the same. She’s worried about her friend, but doesn’t know what to do.
When her teacher also abandons her, and for another student, Claire is overcome. Violet, having had enough of her lot, is also at a tipping point. But there make-up goes awry when Claire spies Violet with Peter. An event innocent enough, but how would she know that from the shadows?
Her night takes many dangerous turns, and ends with another daring rescue by Violet. But the damage is still too great.
In the end, friendship triumphs, and a new and brighter life awaits the pair.
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Rating: 
J.J. Liddy has a happy life. His family is close, and content in all things, except for time. In fact, it seems to everyone that time is slipping away. Buses are always late. There are things that never get done. But some things, like the ceilis his family holds, run like clockwork, and can be counted on. And J.J. is happy to be part of the festivities. Once a dancer, now a musician, J.J. shares his people’s love of music.
After hearing some dire news from his best friend, he spent a brief day as J.J. Byrne, but once his mother set him straight, he became even more determined to continue his old way. Sadly, while he set out with the best of intentions, he never arrives.
Gone to reconcile with his friend Jimmy, J.J. is sent first to Anne Korff’s, to deliver the cheese she had come for earlier and left behind. Anne in turn takes him to a souterrain, leading him through to a mythical land most no longer know of. Sure that his desire to buy his mother time, his promised birthday gift to her, Anne leaves him with a warning he doesn’t understand, and takes herself back home.
In this new realm where time seems barely to move, J.J. finds it hard to have a care. Aside from his worry for the dog Bran, whose hind leg dangles my a thread, and an insistent nagging at the back of his mind, J.J. quite likes this new world. Especially the music.
But he comes to learn that the residents of this happy place are not themselves happy. You see, they’ve got time, which they’ve never had before. Happy to sell it to him for “Dowd’s Number Nine,” all are saddened when they realize J.J. doesn’t know any more than they do how to take the time back. He takes it upon himself, with the help of Aengus Og, to try to find a way.
Their search for the leak leads them high and low and to a few surprises, though in the end it all adds up for J.J. Even the socks.
A very unique read, with a page of music between each chapter, The New Policeman is sure to please not only music lovers and fantasy dwellers, but anyone who loves a good tale.
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January 5th, 2007
2:54 pm
Book Review, Series, Staff Favorites
adventure, children's books, demonology, faeries, fantasy, juvenile fiction, magic, space and time, ya fiction
Rating:
Having saved the world, and more than once, Artemis has found his return to the “simple” life to be rather dull. So when he gets wind of demon materializations, and realizes, quite by accident, that the calculations are wrong and that the world may be about to end yet again…of course he can’t stay away.
After an accidental and short journey through time with a demon, Artemis becomes determined to try to solve the issue of the island of Hybras, suspended in time by a decaying spell. His plans become complicated when he realizes another child genius also knows about the demons–and that their goals are not at all the same.
The two become embroiled in a strategic war, Minerva wanting a Nobel Prize, ARtemis wanting to come up with a plan to save the demon species, with minimal impact to Earth. Neither gets precisely what they wanted, as all plans go awry–and with rather dire consequences–not the least of which is Artemis and Holly’s unexpected trip to Hybras just in time to see it begin to disintegrate.
Will they be able save the island and make it back home?
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In this sequel to Faerie Wars, we pick up right where we left off. Mr Fogarty has settled into his duties as Gatekeeper of the Realm, Pyrgus is acclimating to his position as Emperor Elect, and Henry is back at home missing the Faerie Realm. So when he finds out he’s been invited to Pyrgus’ Coronation Ceremony, he’s perfectly happy to except. On top of that, he finds out he’ll be receiving some magical help in sneaking away–even better!
But not for long.
In the Realm, Lord Hairstreak has struck a deal with the now resurrected Purple Emperor, putting Comma on the throne, with himself as Regent. Comma then releases his crazy mother from the West Wing, after banishing Pyrgus, Blue and Fogarty. Henry lost his original portal maker and had to make himself a new one, and isn’t at all sure he got it right, though he does eventually realize what’s actually going on.
Much more action in this one, since the plots are thicker and the twists more numerous. Very enjoyable and quick read. Can’t wait for the next one!
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Henry Atherton thought he was living a pretty normal life. Sure, working for Mr. Fogarty could be strange, as the man was completely paranoid, but all in all things were good. He even made his cardboard pig fly–and that’s no mean feat. But when he comes down to breakfast to find his Mother acting strangely, and his father turns up acting even stranger, he starts to get the feeling something is amiss.
He mulls it over on the ride to Mr. Fogarty’s with his father, and bites the bullet when he gets let off, and asks his father if he’s having an affair. The answer he receives sends him reeling. So, while cleaning out Mr. Fogarty’s shed and realizing the cat has caught a miniature person with winds, and NOT a butterfly as he first suspected, he captures the thing in a jamjar and takes it to Fogarty, sure things can’t get much weirder.
At home later, he starts to think he must have been crazy to believe in faeries, even if he had been just talking to one. But he knows it was real. When he arrives the next day to find Fogarty with a youth about his own age, things get better and odder all at once.
As promised, Pyrgus has returned to his actual size.
Pyrgus and Henry break into Henry’s school to gather components needed to build a portal to enable Pyrgus to get back home, where he’s certain plots against his father are unfolding. After delivering the parts, Henry’s bit is meant to be done. He’s promised never to see Mr. Fogarty again. But after many days of unanswered calls, he can’t take it anymore, and heads to Fogarty’s to make sure everything is all right.
By this time, Pyrgus has disappeared through the portal and no one’s sure where he is, and his father has come through and gone back with Mr. Fogarty in tow. Henry manages to find the clues left behind and open the portal himself to get through.
After arriving at the Purple Palace, things take one unfortunate turn after another. Only though a stroke of imagination does Henry manage to turn things back around.
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When her sister Azalea is exchanged with a Changeling, suddenly the stories Poison has read all her life become real. With the help of Fleet, the only person in the marshes to understand her, Poison sets off to get her sister back.
So begins a journey from the realm of man to the realm of phaerie, from certainty to illusion, from youth to…
Along the way, unlikely friendships are formed and enemies are earned, and the many mysteries Poison has always puzzled over slowly unravel into an even more mystifying reality.
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Faye has always felt different. Being asian and blonde already set her apart, but throughout her childhood she has friends no one can see and experiences no one can understand. But her friends aren’t imaginary–they’re faeries.
When Faye suddenly has to move back from Philadelphia to her hometown, she feels alone. Though she tries to contact her old childhood friends, she gets no response, and believes they’ve abandoned or forgotten her. So instead she tries to reconnect with old best friend, Janet. Sadly, her first night out proves to be disastrous.
In an old abandoner warehouse, they meet up with the crew. Kaye, feeling uncomfortable, takes off to explore. On an upper floor she finds an old carousel horse. Its legs are missing, but she loves it just the same. When she props it up to ride, Janet’s boyfriend Kenny spots her. He says he saw it stand up.
When he moves from questions to hitting on her, Faye takes off. Walking home through the rain, she hears a noise in some woods off the road. It sounds like someone in pain, so she heads off to investigate. What she finds is a man with a branch through his chest. In actuality, he’s a gentry faery, who’s been shot with an arrow. Though he is suspicious of her, she manages to help him pull the arrow out, then, following his instructions, calls a Kelpie to aid him on his journey back home. He becomes all she thinks about.
The next day she receives a message in an acorn from her old friends, telling her to stay away from the Dark Knight, and that they need to see her. That night, they come to her room, and take her to see the Thistlewitch. While they explain to her that they need her help, the truth of her strangeness is finally revealed. She isn’t an odd human at all—she’s a pixie.
Of course, being a curious teenager at heart, Faye does exactly what her friends recommend against, and removes the glamour that’s been passing her off for human her whole life. The new sights and sounds, smells and taste, the green skin, are all too much for her. She turns to Janet’s brother Corny, who helps her to remove the rest of her glamour, and then to try to research the new things she’s leard of. The Unseelie Court, pixies, the Tithe. None of it bodes well. And as they seek to learn more, things only become more entangled.
Again, Black’s blend of fantasy and reality remind me of Francesca Lia Block. A powerful style, a compelling story.
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