Name: The Modern Faerie Tales:Tithe; Valiant; Ironside
Author: Holly Black
Publisher: Simon Schuster Children's UK
Date published: July 2019
Genre: Fiction, young adult, fantasy, romance, urban fantasy
Pages: 785
Rating: 5/5
In Tithe, sixteen-year-old Kaye is a modern nomad. Fierce and independent, she drifts from place to place with her mother’s rock band until an ominous attack forces Kaye back to her childhood home. There, amid the blue-collar New Jersey backdrop, Kaye finds herself an unwilling pawn in an ancient and violent power struggle between two rival faerie kingdoms - a struggle that could very well mean her death.
In Valiant, the companion to Tithe, seventeen-year-old Valerie runs away to New York City, trying to escape a life that has utterly betrayed her. Sporting a new identity, she takes up with a gang of squatters who live in the city’s labyrinthine subway system. But there’s something eerily beguiling about Val’s new friends. When one talks Val into tracking down the lair of a mysterious creature, Val finds herself torn between her affection for an honorable monster and her fear of what her new friends are becoming.
In Ironside, the sequel to Tithe, the time has come for Roiben’s coronation. Uneasy in the midst of the malevolent Unseelie Court, pixie Kaye is sure of only one thing - her love for Roiben. But when Kaye drunkenly declares herself to Roiben, he sends her on a seemingly impossible quest to find a faerie who can tell a lie. Unable to see Roiben until she has fulfilled his quest, Kaye finds herself in the center of the battle of wits and weapons being waged over his throne.
- From Goodreads.
Holly Black's style is always so enjoyable to read, she can write really thoughtfully and include really vivid descriptions, but also have a lot of short, sharp and fun narration and dialogue.
I love that the faeries and other magical creatures that she includes can be really dark and twisted, they are definitely not human and they really feel dangerous, sinister and unpredictable.
Tithe
I think this story really shows that Holly Black can pack a lot into a short story and make it immersive and have us get to know the characters and world well even when we do not have as much time as we would in a longer story.
I really liked Kaye and Roiben, they both felt very unique, Kaye was so vibrant and full of charm and Roiben was so fascinating and mysterious, it was exciting to see them meet and come to know each other and see how they quickly became important to each other.
Valiant
I thought the characters in this story were very intriguing too, they all had a lot of personality and were fun to learn about. Even though Val and Ravus were both going through painful experiences, they both had good hearts underneath it all and slowly became able to trust and help each other and I loved how that was done.
The plot was truly a rollercoaster and I really had no idea what was going to happen, it was thrilling to read and really kept me turning the pages.
I enjoyed how it linked back to Tithe and how it included little references to that story, it stood well on its own but it also worked well as a follow-on story.
Ironside
It was exciting to be back with Kaye and Roiben again and to see how their story continued, and how it all tied together with everything that had happened in Valiant. It was very fast-paced and intense and always kept me guessing about what the ending would be.
The Lament of Lutie-Loo
It was fun to read a story from Lutie's perspective, Holly Black wrote her voice in a great, light-hearted way that worked well even in the darker moments.
It was exciting to read plot that would lead into The Cruel Prince and to see characters from that trilogy, it was fun to have more insight into what led to the events of that book.
Overall, I really enjoyed all three of the stories, and the bonus story in this edition, they were all very captivating and full of energy. I can definitely see how Holly Black went on to write the Folk of the Air trilogy after this as she definitely started to create a fascinating world full of trickster faeries in these stories.
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