That said, this book was written almost 20 years ago and is a first novel, and both of those elements show. There are some tragic turns and dramatic encounters, and the pacing of the story is quick and engaging. (Side note: Kaye and Roiben make brief appearances in the Folk of the Air trilogy, and once I realized that they were the main characters in Tithe, I knew I needed to read it.) The dynamic between Kaye and Roiben is quite fun. She hates the power games and brutality shown by some of the Fae, but she sees beauty in this world as well. Kaye is a great character, a little jaded and world-weary, but also in awe of the new world that opens before her. She’d like to trust Roiben, but he’s clearly dangerous as well, and Kaye is still learning about her own magic and abilities, as well as worrying about her mortal friends who have inadvertently gotten mixed up with the world of Faerie. Things escalate quickly, and Kaye finds herself pulled into a power struggle between the different Fae courts. It turns out that Kaye is a pixie changeling, placed under heavy glamours to appear human and exchanged for the real baby Kaye, who’s been raised in Faerie in Kaye’s place. As she tries to help him, a bond is forged, and she starts to learn more about her own true nature. Some strange things start to recur, and after a bad night out, Kaye runs into a beautiful, otherworldly man in the forest who’s been injured. But are they really imaginary? In her early years, Kaye would tell anyone who would listen about her magical fairy friends, which no one ever believed, earning herself the reputation of being a weird kid. Kaye is happy to reconnect with her elementary school bestie, Janet, and also hopes to see her imaginary friends again. When they need a sudden escape from a dangerous situation, they move back to Kaye’s hometown in New Jersey to live in her grandmother’s house. She stopped going to school a couple of years earlier, rather than continuing to go through the process of starting over every time they pick up move somewhere new for the sake of a new gig.

Kaye is a 16-year-old girl who lives wherever her mother happens to land, raising herself while her mother focuses on her band. Tithe, the first book in the trilogy, was first published in 2002, and is Holly Black’s first novel. I have been wanting to read the Modern Faerie Tale trilogy ever since reading the author’s more recent Folk of the Air series, which I love to pieces. There, amid the industrial, blue-collar New Jersey backdrop, Kaye soon finds herself an unwilling pawn in an ancient power struggle between two rival faerie kingdoms – a struggle that could very well mean her death. Fierce and independent, she travels from city to city with her mother’s rock band until an ominous attack forces Kaye back to her childhood home. Welcome to the realm of very scary faeries!

A modern faerie tale