Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale by Holly Black

I've known that his book existed for a while but only last night did I start to read it--and finish it, at 5 in the morning, having gone through the whole thing in one sitting. Tithe went far beyond my expectations.

So what were those expectations? I knew that there were faeries and that it was supposed to be "edgy" and that there was some kind of romancin' going on. I'd seen a little fan-art online, of white-haired pretty-boys with pointy ears. In my head it was Twilight with elves, a slight fantasy with some mild romance.

Kaye Fierch is our plucky protag, though she resembles the typical teen heroine in he same way a griffin resembles an eagle. Part of hat archetype is there, but there's something else entirely grafted on. She feels like an outcast--par for the course--she's probably half-asian--okay--and her mother is a musician who she travels the States with, and she hasn't been to school in two years and she may have accidentally put some kind of love spell on her best (and only) friend's boyfriend. Things get interesting.

The Exile by Diana Gabaldon

I've never read the Outlander series, though I know they have quite a following. Maybe the core audience for The Exile, fans of the source material, would like it better than I did.

The Exile is a graphic novel retelling the plot of Outlander from a modified point of view. The main effect of this seems to be that the action is always going on somewhere else. Scenes seem barely connected to one another, and the motivations of characters are not adequately explained.

As with many graphic novels based on other media, and many graphic novels by authors new to the format, the reading experience feels rushed and slight. I read The Exile in one sitting, and when I finished felt like I had barely read at all. I'm not sure if it covers the whole of the first novel, but the disjointed sce
nes and incomplete characterization gave more than a little of the impression that this was more of a cash-in than anything else. Though I can't vouch for how well it accompanies the original novel, as a standalone I can't recommend it.

Warrior by Zoë Archer

I had made a very nice scan of my copy of this book, which I hope to do for every book I talk about on this blog, but once I scanned it I gave the book to my friend Sarah to read. I got back to the computer, someone had unplugged some vital cord, and biff bam pow my scan was gone. So for the first and hopefully the last time, I'm using the publisher's image of the book. Serviceable, yes, but lacking character.

Serviceable yet lacking character? Sounds like a romance novel. 
 

Not this one, though. Warrior by Zoë Archer, first in the Blades of the Rose series, has enough character--and characters--for a whole month's worth of Harlequin Presents. I picked this one up after reading a favorable description of its first sequel, Scoundrel, and bought both at once because there was a free B. J. Daniels book for anyone who bought two romance novels at once. I'll get to both of those a little later.