Valiant: A Modern Tale Of Faerie - Hardcover

Black, Holly

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0689868227 ISBN 13: 9780689868221

Publisher: Margaret K McElderry, 2005

Synopsis

When seventeen-year-old Valerie Russell runs away to New York City, she's trying to escape a life that has utterly betrayed her. Sporting a new identity, she takes up with a gang of squatters who live in the city's labyrinthine subway system.
But there's something eerily beguiling about Val's new friends. Impulsive Lolli talks of monsters in the subway tunnels they call home and shoots up a shimmery amber-colored powder that makes the shadows around her dance. Severe Luis claims he can make deals with creatures that no one else can see. And then there's Luis's brother, timid and sensitive Dave, who makes the mistake of letting Val tag along as he makes a delivery to a woman who turns out to have goat hooves instead of feet.
When a bewildered Val allows Lolli to talk her into tracking down the hidden lair of the creature for whom Luis and Dave have been dealing, Val finds herself bound into service by a troll named Ravus. He is as hideous as he is honorable. And as Val grows to know him, she finds herself torn between her affection for an honorable monster and her fear of what her new friends are becoming.
Bestselling author Holly Black follows her breakout debut, Tithe, with a rich, harrowing, and compulsively readable parable of betrayal, abuse, friendship, and love.

About this title

Review:

"Exciting."

-- "Publishers Weekly"

"Intoxicating."

-- "Booklist"

"This is a powerful book.... I love it when a girl learns how to be Valiant."

-- Tamora Pierce, author of the "Immortals" and "Song of the Lioness" quartets

"An edgy but ultimately life-affirming read."

-- "Horn Book Guide"

About the Author:

Holly Black is the author of bestselling contemporary fantasy books for kids and teens. Some of her titles include The Spiderwick Chronicles (with Tony DiTerlizzi), the Modern Faerie Tales series, the Curse Workers series, Doll Bones, The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, The Darkest Part of the Forest, the Magisterium series (with Cassandra Clare), and the Folk of the Air series. She has been a finalist for the Mythopoeic Award, a finalist for an Eisner Award, and the recipient of both an Andre Norton Award and a Newbery Honor. She lives in New England with her husband and son in a house with a secret door. Visit her at BlackHolly.com.

About this edition

• Publisher: Margaret K McElderry
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0689868227
• ISBN 13: 9780689868221
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 336