Fairy Tale

Morgan and her football star boyfriend Cam have been “attached at the hip since kindergarten,” but now their love is threatened by the Otherworld—a land of fairies. Morgan has always possessed the ability to see into the future: who will get into Harvard, who is gay and whose relationships will last (“It's not my fault. I just deliver the mail; I don't write it,” she says). As the teens' sweet 16 approaches (they share a birthday), Cam begins to grow wings, and his odd cousin Pip appears to explain that Cam must return to the Otherworld, enter into an arranged marriage and become king of that realm. While plotting to save Cam as he shrinks into a fairy, Pip and Morgan develop their own romance. The plot of Balog's debut novel unfolds quickly, without much suspense, and while Morgan's voice is often entertaining, she feels somewhat remote as a narrator—it's difficult to get a sense of her as a character. An intermittently gripping if not especially memorable addition to the urban faerie genre. Ages 12–up. (June)