Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale

Black, H. ( 2002). Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

Kaye is a sixteen year old with an unorthodox life.  Her mother is in a rock band and Kaye has traveled from city to city with her mother on the road.  When her mother's live-in boyfriend and band member tries to attack her mother one night, they leave and move in with her grandmother.  Kaye used to live with her grandmother as a young child.  She vividly remembers as a child having faeries as friends and one evening meets a wounded faerie named Roiben, who she helps.  She has an instant attraction to Roiben.  Soon she is thrown into a faerie war when she receives a message from her childhood faerie friends that one of them has been killed.  Soon her old faerie friends visit her and take her to the woods to visit the Thistlewitch, who tells her about the battle between the Unseelie Court and the Seelie Court, two group of faeries battling for power.  The Thistlewitch then reveals to Kaye that she is really a changling pixie and will be used to trick the Unseelie Court, the evil faeries.  She also tells Kaye of the blood Tithe, where a moral needs to be sacrificed so the Unseelie Court can continue to be in power.  Kaye agrees to help trick the Unseelie Court, since she has " glamour", which makes her look like a human.  Thistlewitch tells her more about faerie magic.  Kaye then goes home to see what her true pixie self looks like, and she finds out she is green and has wings.  With her friend Corny, they search the internet to find out more about the faerie land.  Soon, Kaye and Corny are exploring the underground world of the Unseelie Faerie world.  They get caught into the battle, and the night before Halloween, Kaye is caught to be the human sacrifice for the Tithe.  Roiben saves her from the sacrifice, and the evil queen is killed.  But then an evil knight makes himself king, and kidnaps Corny.  Roiben and Kaye enter the Unseelie world again to find and rescue Corny.  They kill the evil king, and Roiben is now the king.  Kaye returns to the human world and misses Roiben.  At the end he comes and kisses her.

This modern fantasy combines detailed writing with lots of imagination written for young adult readers.  It has a strong, independent female character as well.  It's appealing to YA readers that enjoy fantasy, mystery, and mythical creatures.   It also has a love interest, Roiben. Readers of fantasy will enjoy the magic, faeries, and good versus evil element. 

This fantasy was the debut book of Holly Black and the first of the Modern Faerie Tale series.  Tithe was listed in YALSA Teens' Top Ten in 2003 and YALSA Popular Paperbacks for YA in 2005.   Since Tithe,  Ms. Black has gone on to write many more fantasies about faeries and supernatural creatures for young adult and middle school readers.  She is best know for the Spiderwick Chronicles series, which also was made into a movie in 2008.  She has also written graphic novels and several short stories.  Ms. Black continues to write and one of her latest books is The Darkest Part of the Forest, which was a 2016 Teens'  Top Ten Nominee.  The book trailer is below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKUzMMuvme8