Bestselling children's author Pike (The Cold One
) delivers a somewhat muddled elvish fantasy, the first in a new series aimed at an adult as well as a YA audience. Passionate about saving trees, 13-year-old Alison Warner just happens to live in a California town that's been targeted by the lumber industry. Ali protests and rides her bike into the forbidding mountains where the work is about to begin. There Ali starts to realize that she's not who she thought she was, that she has an important job to fulfill, that in fact she's the Queen of the Fairies from another dimension who has hidden in a human body. Flat supporting characters with little motivation other than a kid's need for adventure, plus a protagonist who too often acts like a whiny five-year-old one moment and a cranky 30-year-old the next, make this one of Pike's lesser efforts. Agent, Ashley Grayson. (July 30)
