Ironside: A Modern Faery's Tale
Cover of the paperback edition
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| Author | Holly Black |
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| Cover artist | Sammy Yuen, Jr. |
| Country | United States |
| Series | Modern Tale of Faerie |
| Genre | Young adult urban fantasy |
| Published | April 2007 Margaret K. McElderry Books |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 323 pp (first ed.) |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 70866840 |
| LC Class | PZ7.B52878 Iro 2007 |
| Preceded by | Valiant: A Modern Tale of Faerie |
Ironside: A Modern Faery's Tale is a young-adult urban fantasy by Holly Black. It was published in 2007 by the Margaret K. McElderry imprint of Simon & Schuster, who recommended it for readers age "14 up".
The novel is a direct sequel to Black's first book Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale (2002). It is considered to complete a trilogy called [A] Modern Tale of Faerie, literally the subtitle of the intervening second book Valiant. According to online excerpts from a 2006 Locus interview and short biography of Black, "Valiant (2005) is another contemporary fantasy loosely related to Tithe, and Ironside, a direct sequel to Tithe, is forthcoming." Black told Locus then that she calls Tithe "suburban fantasy, as opposed to urban fantasy. It's set on the Jersey Shore and it's got fairies."
In the realm of Faery, the time has come for Roiben's coronation. Uneasy in the midst of the malevolent Unseelie Court, pixie Kaye is sure of one thing only, her love for Roiben. But when Kaye, drunk on faerie wine, declares herself to him, he sends her on a seemingly impossible quest. Now Kaye cannot see or speak with Roiben unless she can find the one thing she knows does not exist: a faerie who can tell a lie.
Corny and Kaye decide to watch Ellen, her mother, perform in a bar. A male character is watching Kaye. Realising that this character is a faery, Corny attempts to get information from him in the bathroom. Kaye finds them and the faery curses Corny so that anything he touches withers.
Miserable and convinced she belongs nowhere, Kaye decides to tell her mother the truth that she is a changeling, long ago left in place of a human daughter. Her mother's shock and horror sends Kaye to the Seelie Court to find her human counterpart and bring her back to Ironside. Silarial offers Kaye protection to and from the court in order to offer her a deal, and a boy who can see through faerie enchantments, Luis (introduced in Valiant, the preceding book in the series), is arranged to lead them there.
Silarial offers Roiben a lifeline: defeat her champion and win seven years of peace while also placing Roiben's sister Ethine on the throne instead, or die trying. While she is in the court, the Seelie queen attempts to make Kaye use Roiben's name to force him back into the Seelie Court by bribing her with the return of the "real" Kaye. Kaye uses a fake name, then escapes with Ethine as a hostage. Kaye returns to her grandmother's house in order to retrieve her things where she finds her replacement, Kate, in her bedroom. Kaye talks with her mother, who accepts her as her daughter. Her grandmother thinks that Kate is Kaye's sister whom she was never told about.
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