Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale

Forget any images you have of fairies from colorful cartoon tales or happy stories you heard as a child. Forget images conjured forth by Shakespeare in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The creatures of Faerie that inhabit Holly Black’s first novel, Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale, are not of that ilk. These creatures are more akin to those that inhabit the original tales of the brothers Grimm, or perhaps those that would be found in one’s darkest dreams.

Tithe tells the story of 16 year old Kaye, a high school drop out with no purpose, traveling the country with her drunken, rock-band mother. Early events in the story lead Kaye back to her childhood home. There she attempts to renew friendships with former school mates as well as the “imaginary friends” of her childhood. Not long after arriving Kaye gets swept up in a strange and mysterious struggle between two rival kingdoms of Faerie. With her world becoming increasingly more dangerous Kaye must struggle with who she is becoming and decide who she can trust before she and those she loves are destroyed.

Tithe is written by Holly Black, co-author with Tony DiTerlizzi of the phenomenal children’s series, The Spiderwick Chronicles. Unlike Spiderwick, Tithe is appropriately classified as a Young Adult story. In the first few chapters Ms. Black almost overdoes it in introducing many of the elements often negatively associated with today’s teenagers: smoking, alcohol, drugs, sex, disrespect for authority. What Ms. Black is doing is setting the scene for this very dark tale but I have to admit that it seemed a little juvenile to me. However, as the land of Faerie begins to encroach upon the life of her young heroine, Ms. Black really hits her stride and leads the reader on a remarkable tale of suspense. Ms. Black describes Faerie and all its beautiful and loathesome creatures with such rich detail that it is easy for the reader to visualize. A strength of Ms. Black’s writing style is that I very naturally found myself caring about Kaye, her fate, and the fate of her friends.

If you’re looking for a dark, suspenseful fairy tale then I would highly recommend this book. I also highly recommend The Spiderwick Chronicles.

You can learn more about Holly Black, her novels, and find tips for writers at her website.

Valiant: A Modern Tale of Faerie, a sequel to Tithe, is due out June 1st.

19 thoughts on “Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale”

Way off topic but I thought I would tell you that with 1.5 you don’t need the BR code in there anymore when you want an enter..

Feel free to delete this nonsense.

thanks

I love Fairies, thanks for the info.

“ow! it bit me!”

“well, what’d ye expect faeries to do?”

“i thought they did nice things. like granting wishes.”

“heh. show what you know. sixty! woohoo!” (does little dance)

think i’ve seen this too many times?

Hey, my wife and I could do the same thing! Oddly enough I was listening to the Labyrinth soundtrack on the way to and from lunch today and I was thinking of this scene last night when I was writing the review.

You remind me of the babe
What babe? the babe with the power
What power? power of voodoo
Who do? you do
Do what? remind me of the babe

Sounds interesting. I really love the cover artwork.

Actually that’s what attracted me to it this time around. I had seen the hardcover and thought it looked so-so. I was walking through Barnes and Noble and this had just come out in paperback and I loved the look of it. Since I had read and liked the Black/DiTerlizzi Spiderwick Chronicles I also felt like it was less of a risk.