REVIEW: Tithe by Holly Black

Forget what you know about faeries and their world. Just wipe them from your mind. In Holly Black’s Tithe: A Mod­ern Faerie Tale, the faeries are a malev­o­lent bunch look­ing to spill mor­tal blood. Ms. Black has a vivid imag­i­na­tion that includes magic, enchantment, goblins and rid­dles. I was enthralled with this story from the begin­ning to the end.

Kaye is not human; she’s a changeling. After liv­ing six­teen years as a mor­tal, she finds her­self manip­u­lated by the Fae. The Fae have always been a secre­tive part of her life. Dur­ing her child­hood, Kaye remem­bers hav­ing had three “imag­i­nary friends” that she would play with at her grandmother’s home in Jer­sey. It’s been years since Kaye and her mom have been back home to Jersey. As the story opens, they leave Philly to stay with her grand­mother tem­porar­ily. While there Kaye seeks out her fey friends only to find them gone and that some­thing ter­ri­ble has happened.

Kaye’s mother, Ellen, doesn’t win any awards for being the best mom; she’s an alco­holic and con­tin­ues to live a life of self-delusion. Con­tin­u­ously pur­su­ing a dream that has long passed her by. Kaye is a high school drop out with no direc­tion or parental super­vi­sion. Many a time Kaye has had to be the adult; often quit­ting school to find work.

Kaye is seen as awk­ward and weird by her friends. She is described as hav­ing Asian looks with blond hair. She is not apart of the “pop­u­lar crowd” of kids. Her cir­cle of friends includes Janet who lives in a trailer park with her pim­ply faced brother Corey. Weird things seem to hap­pen to her when she’s alone. Mag­i­cal things. One evening after leav­ing a party and head­ing home, she runs across some­one wounded in the road. From the looks of him—-he’s fey. With an arrow to the chest, she helps him evade fur­ther attack. The per­son she saves is Roiben. A knight in the Unseelie Court who is viewed by many of the soli­tary fey as a per­son to be feared.

There seems to be two types of fey: the soli­tary fey who are bound to servi­tude to the Gen­try of the court and those who rule the court; thus you have the two courts: The Seelie Court and the Unseelie Court. The Seelie court houses most of the benign fey while the Unseelie Court seems to house most of the malev­o­lent fey. Fey who would rather spill blood out of amuse­ment and sheer bore­dom. Roiben is a knight in the Unseelie Court, handed over by the Seelie Queen in exchange for another Knight. It is this ambi­gu­ity of Roiben’s role to the Unseelie Court that makes him a com­plex character.

Kaye’s role in their world hinges on the Tithe or sac­ri­fice of human blood for free­dom of all soli­tary fey. Kaye even­tu­ally learns that she is not human and is soon con­vinced to be a sac­ri­fice for the Tithe. The Tithe frees all soli­tary fey for seven years leav­ing them  bound to no Gen­try or mor­tal. Kaye is not human there­fore, the soli­tary fey wants her to pre­tend to be human so that the Tithe becomes void. Thus, she is the cat­a­lyst for the events that lead up to the chang­ing of lead­er­ship in the Unseelie Court. When the Tithe gets sab­o­taged, Kaye have no idea that her actions have con­se­quences for mor­tals and fey alike.

The author does an excel­lent job of con­trast­ing the fan­tasy with real­ity. This is a dark story with a bit of vio­lence and to some— offensive lan­guage. I was sur­prised that this title was tar­geted to teens. It seemed some­what more suited shelved in SF/F aisle. I enjoyed the novel for the sheer imagery of it. The author seems to have a very vivid imag­i­na­tion. I really enjoyed this world that she cre­ated here.

And did I men­tion the the hero? He is hot. In a reserved way. Think Orlando Bloom from Lord of the Rings. Roiben is described as hav­ing long white hair that flows down the length of his back and wears noth­ing but black from head to toe, encased in a long, black, body length cloak.{ Swoon.} Roiben and Kaye have great chem­istry together. Their romance was just get­ting started when the book ended.

This is a great tale of urban fan­tasy with well fleshed out char­ac­ters who are cloaked in ambi­gu­ity. I read this book in two days and didn’t want to put it down. Next time your in the book store, stop over in the YA sec­tion and look for Holly Black’s Tithe. Over­all grade, A-. She has a sequel already out and I already have dl’d called Valiant. And what looks to be a third book in the series titled Iron­side, due out May 2007.

For Fur­ther Reading

• REVIEW: Iron­side by Holly Black: A Mod­ern Faery’s Tale
• REVIEW: Valiant by Holly Black
• REVIEW: On the Prowl by Briggs, Wilks, Chance, Sunny
• REVIEW: ‘Iron Kissed (A Mercy Thomp­son Series)’ by Patri­cia Briggs
• Ain’t Mis­be­hav­ing, Jeanne Grant
• The Wrong Man For Her, Kathryn Shay [Guest Review]
• Ōoku: The Inner Cham­bers, Fumi Yoshinaga
• Vam­pire Knight Story & Art by Mat­suri Hino
• REVIEW: Rain­wa­ter by San­dra Brown
• “When Love Isn’t Enough” by Kath­leen Gilles Seidel

Tagged as: fae, Holly Black, Romance, Urban Fantasy