Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #78360 in Books
• Published on: 2004-02-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Synopsis
Do you believe in faeries? Not the soft, gentle kind, but the sinister, feral kind - the ones that wreak havoc on everything in their path...Sixteen-year-old Kaye is a modern nomad. Fierce and independent, she travels from city to city with her mother's rock band, until an ominous attack forces them back to her childhood home. To the place where she used to see Faeries. They're still there. But Kaye's not a child anymore. This time she's dragged into the thick of their dangerous, frightening world. A realm where black horses dwell beneath the sea, desperate to drown you...where the sinister Thistlewitch divines dark futures...and where beautiful faerie knights are driven to perform acts of brutal depravity for the love of their uncaring queens. Once there, Kaye finds herself an unwilling pawn in an ancient power struggle between two rival faerie kingdoms - a struggle that could end in her death...

Customer Reviews

Definitely a page turner
The story of a teenage girl from the modern day world who discovers a world of magic, mystery and mayhem.

I thought 'Tithe' was really enjoyable and easy to read. I couldn't put it down. There is strong language used but not in an excessive way. I'm not one for swearing but I felt it added to the true atmosphere that teenagers face in the modern day.

There are some really interesting twists in the tale and Holly Black has created suspense in every chapter. It was fast paced as well, so no time to get bored, but enough description to take you to both the 'real' and faery world. A fantastic read for young adults looking for a magical adventure.

Not that great
I have to say that I didn't really enjoy this book. I sometimes felt that the plot jumped or skipped over parts which I felt were important. It left me at times feeling a little bit disorientated.

There were moments of acute realism combined with faerie images and this was what originally attracted my interest in this book. The author's idea of realism obviously includes profanity, yet I felt she overdid it. There was a time when it was necessary to have your characters swear alot if they were to be portrayed as streetwise or worldly (or trying to be)but I think many writers now realise that only a small amount of profanity does the job, or works even better (what with it being more noticable).

Some of the images the author uses work - and sound great - but there is so many of them (in replace of a fantastic plot) that their effect is somewhat diluted. For me, a great book should sound effortless and this just appeared too 'trying too hard'.

fairy story with freshness and hard edged realisem for grown ups unwilling to give up on fairys
i loved this book sick of the constent rewritting of the lord of the rings and having loved harry potter books and his dark miterals i was giving teen novels a go . i got this book on the strength of the spiderwick books that i had read to my god son and my fasination with fairys. it is hard edged and no fluffy kids book or thinly diskisd teen romance.It takes risks in showing teen the way thay are in the real world that makes the fairy word more real.At 35 i now i am not the targit for this book but i am very glade i gave this book a go and will be reading more holly black and taking chanses on teen fiction to see if i can find more of this freshness that i have been missing in fiction written for grown ups who crave fairy tails