Monday, February 05, 2007

Faerie Wars by Herbie Brennan

Henry Atherton is an average boy. When he wakes up on a not so average day, he finds out several things. First of all, his parent's relationship is ruined because his mother is having an affair with his dad's secretary. Secondly, when he goes to work for old Mr. Fogarty, he finds a mysterious fairy named Pyrgus Malvae, the Crown Prince. Pyrgus is from a different world, the Faerie Relm, and he is next in line for Emperor. He doesn't care for politics too much anyway. While he is out roaming the streets, Brimstone of the glue factory captures him and needs to sacrifice him to the demon Beleth. Pyrgus gets rescued by the Emperor's guards [his father's]. When his father knows he isn't safe in their world anymore, he gets sent in their magical portal to the Analouge World [the human world]. Pyrgus somehow gets sabotaged in the process, so instead of going to an island, he gets sent to Mr. Fogarty's backyard. Henry and Mr. Fogarty try to help Pyrgus get back to his own world, but something else goes wrong. The whole time this is going on, his sister Holly Blue, is trying to help get Pyrgus back and find out who sabotaged him. Will he get back to the Faerie Relm safely?

When I first started the book, I thought it would be about a war going on [because of the title]. However, after reading a few chapters I knew that it wasn't. The chapters go back and forth from character to another to another so you have to pay attention to understand the whole story. The vocabulary is understandable and has a great variety. I would recommend this book to people who like fantasy because of the different 'species' of characters. There is great foreshadowing to help you predict events that would happen later in the book. I found this book very well-written, addicting, and I can not wait to get the second book to read in this series!

Rating (0 - 10 scale): 8
Reviewer Age: 13
Reviewer City, State and Country: Carlisle, PA USA