booksoftheweek: The Mysteries/The Ill-Made Mute

I'm all fairied out.

I just read two books back-to-back that dealt with fairies: The Mysteries, by Susan Tuttle, and The Ill-Made Mute by Cecilia Dart-Thornton.

The Mysteries is about a private detective who specializes in finding lost people. It all started when his dad disappeared, and he "accidentally" discovered where he went. He fantasized about the dad just suddenly disappearing, but the truth was a bit more mundane than that. Then he gets recruited to find a girl who has disappeared--and may have been taken by the king of fairies...

The Ill-Made Mute is the first book in a traditional fantasy trilogy, set in a world much like Ireland. The world, called Erith, is populated by both seelie (harmless) and unseelie (evil) wights, living alongside humans. The Ill-Made Mute is actually a person called Imrhien, who is dreadfully ugly. The person, because of that ugliness, is scorned by other people, and is miserable as a drudge. The person manages to leave the town in order to search for the truth...

Each novel is sprinkled liberally with stories about fairies. In fact, a couple of the stories actually appear in both novels--the one about the midwife who is taken to the land of faerie to birth a child, for example--that I'm beginning to get all fairied out. The last book I reviewed, Shadowmarch, also dealt with fairies invading the land of humans.

So, anyway, back to the books: The Mysteries was a pretty compelling book. It was fun seeing the detective's efforts in finding the missing girl--the snippets about other people becoming missing throughout the years was very interesting. The ending was the most frustrating part--because it leaves you hanging. ARGH! I guess it's a good thing, that I got so invested in the characters that I wanted to find out what happens in the end.

Similarly, the best parts in The Ill-Made Mute dealt with the stories about the different types fairies. The parts where the main characters go through the land of faerie was also very interesting and proved quite a fast read. One thing spoiled it for me, though: the book jacket reveals the "twist" with Imrhien. Of course, you could see it coming from a mile away.

One unfortunate thing about The Ill-Made Mute: it becomes a Mills and Boone novel at some point. Ick.

Anyway, I'm working through the other two books in the trilogy. Stay tuned.

(off to watch Fairly Oddparents now!)