As she proves in her first novel, Wondrous Strange , Toronto actor Lesley Livingston knows teenaged girls.
While the story of a long-lost, teen fairy princess in New York City might pique a 13-year-old's interest, teenaged cynicism requires strong characters grounded in the here and now, and at the very least a token hesitancy to take kid's stories and fairytales at face value.
No problem, Livingston demonstrates with her protagonist, Kelley Winslow. At 17, pale and lovely Kelley gets her big break: She will play the fairy Titania, the Summer Queen who quarrels with the Winter King Oberon, in the Avalon Theatre production of A Midsummer Night's Dream .
Next, Kelley meets Sonny Flannery, a long-haired dreamboat who is, in fact, centuries old. Sonny is a real Changeling, stolen from mortal life by none other than the real Auberon, Lord of the Unseelie. Yup, faeries do exist, as do Titania and Queen Mabh, the vengeful mistress of air and darkness.
Hunky Sonny belongs to the Janus guard, Auberon's henchmen, who hew pixies and befouled ravens and any other “fae” creatures, especially Mabh's minions, who cross into the mortal realm. Her demon hunters would see the streets of New York City run red with mortal blood.
Oh, bestselling Twilight , thou hast a strong contender.
Livingston's Sonny is a dreamy bad boy of the first rate. He starts off frosty but melts Kelley's heart with escalating acts of chivalry and selflessness.
Kelley and Sonny's stormy negotiations culminate in a faerie-lit date to Central Park's Tavern on the Green, and a re-enactment of the Bard's Midsummer Night's love scenes: “I love thee. … His storm grey eyes flashed, and the dark silk of his hair drifted across his cheek as he leaned in his head. Perfect.”
Groan-worthy mushy stuff? Nah, it works for a young adult audience. Livingston delivers with skillful momentum, in the same way she unveils the complicated faerie plots lurking behind the fabric of the everyday: Kelley is a long-lost faerie princess, the secret fruit of Auberon's “dalliances.”
With mastery, Livingston handles the dramatic agony of growing up as Kelley wrestles through her transformation and the mystery of her birth – is she or isn't she “an incandescent creature”? Alas, cruel Auberon and another fae, revealed later as the bloodthirsty Mabh, have saddled her with a legacy of dark power and terrible gifts.
As a young adult fantasy, this book has it all. Livingston conjures a chaste but heady teen romance, a coming-of-age story about the tyranny of hormones, the burden of parentage and the glory of young love, all wrapped in a gossamer bow.
Fantasy powerhouse Charles De Lint also creates a secret fairy world for girls in Little (Grrl) Lost . Instead of olden fairy courts and Elizabethan gowns, however, this book is more Goth and punk, an almost retro-homage to the feisty girl power of the Riot Grrrl movement.
Elizabeth is six inches tall, but never diminutive. She has neon blue hair, “chunky shoes” and glut of attitude. She sews her own clothes from scraps she finds lying around the house where she lives with her family, creatures called “Littles.”
De Lint's literary references, which he acknowledges more than once, are John Peterson's The Littles and Swift's Gulliver's Travels . Like mice, Elizabeth's family lives in the walls, scrounging for food and escaping the house cat belonging to the Moore family. The Moores are “Bigs,” or regular sized people, living in a suburb near a place called Newford.
T. J. Moore, our other protagonist, is nearly 15. She hates city life in Newford, having recently moved from the country. She learns about the Littles in her midst when Elizabeth runs away from home, screaming through the wee door in the baseboard the same thing T.J. feels about her new life: “I'm not that person. I don't want to be that person. I'm never going to be that person and you can't make me!”
