Tithe (Simon Pulse, 2004)

Teen fiction can be a tough market, but Holly Black seems to have cracked it with Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale.

Sixteen year old Kaye has been living a rough life on the road with her mom's rock band. Her unconventional life gets even weirder though after she returns to her childhood home and finds she can perform magic and talk with faeries that she had long ago convinced herself were imaginary friends.

Kaye soon finds herself deeply immersed in the world of the faeries, caught between two feuding faerie kingdoms, and forced to play an important role. Only her best friend's brother seems willing to help but there is little he can do as a mere mortal.

The book has enough violence and gore to satisfy teen fans of vampire fiction and similar genres, plus the usual teen dating dilemmas, but it is in creating the faerie world where Black really excels. The feuding faeries are played one against the other in intrigue out of a political potboiler keeping the reader guessing to the end.

****

Buy Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale in paperback.