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Reading Level: Young Adult Holly Black continues the tale of Kaye, the changeling pixie, and Roiben, knight of the Seelie Court, in Ironside, the sequel to Tithe. Kaye is back in New Jersey, still blending into the human world, or "Ironside", as the faeries term it, but Roiben has had a busy and rather nasty time of it on the other side. He's about to become crowned the Lord of the Unseelie Court, not a title even he would freely choose, and Kaye and her friend Corny are on their way, perhaps not wisely, to his coronation. Once again, Black pulls us into a dark and violent world, where even the good guys are not what they should be. We've met these characters before, so the descent into chaos is even quicker here, and Black's writing style is akin to being on a very scary funhouse ride, one you can't seem to step away from. Teen readers will identify with the quirky humans as they struggle with the very nasty goings-on of the dark faery folk, and this appeal is exactly what lands Holly Black at the top of the young adult lists again and again. Ironside is no exception to this rule. — Kay Morris
Reading Level: Young Adult Kaye has a problem—someone has just tried to kill her, and it’s her mother’s current boyfriend, suddenly gone slightly schizophrenic. Mom, the lead singer of the rock band Stepping Razor, packs up her daughter and herself and runs home to Grandma, to the place Kaye left years ago when she was a little girl – Atlantic City, New Jersey, looking for a haven. Life has been a little different than that of most of her peers for 16-year-old Kaye, on the road with the band for some ten years, and she’s grown fiercely independent. Now, she finds herself back at home, but things are a little different there, too. Atlantic City is no haven, because Kaye finds that the faeries she thought she knew as a child there were not simply fantasies or childhood imaginings. The faeries in Holly Black’s Tithe are not made of spun sugar and sparkly lace, oh no. They’re the real thing—faeries who cast dark spells and entice unsuspecting mortals to their deaths. Kaye discovers there’s a war on, between the good faeries and the bad ones, or the Seelie and Unseelie Courts, and that she has a major role to play in their conflict. Tithe, now in paperback reprint, is an edgy, dark novel, full of surprises and suspense. Kaye is a gutsy heroine, and her relationship with Roiben, the dark knight of Faerie, is arguably the most dangerous yet romantic liason in YA fiction. Holly Black is also the co-author of the very successful and intriguing Spiderwick Chronicles, but Tithe was her first novel, and reader enthusiasm catapulted it to the YALSA Best Book for Young Adults spot, as well as YALSA Teen’s Top Ten Booklist. From the first page, it’s easy to understand why. Ms. Black spins a scary, otherworldly yarn with the best of them, and once entwined, it's a web readers won't want to escape.— Kay Morris
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