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Heather and Morag are two punkish thistle fairies on the run from Scotland. Unfortunately, in a drunken stupor, they seem to have stumbled onto a jet bound for New York. Heather and Morag try to acclimate to the huge city, along with the help of their friend Kerry and the ever-reluctant Dinny. Heather and Morag and the other fairies set about trying to improve the lives of everyone around them, because that’s what good fairies do, and in the process manage to get what seems like the entire underground population of New York upset with them and each other.
I was hugely enjoying myself through the first half of the book. The plot was different, there were fairies, the story was funny, and did I mention that there were fairies? But then it just got to be too much. The story turned into a farce. That’s really just not my kind of thing. Everybody was mad at everybody else, except for the ones that Heather and Morag had apologized too, but then even those would get upset again, and it was just too much to keep up with. I liked the idea, it just got old. And there’s this whole underlying storyline about redemption. Normally, I’m a sucker for redemption stories. But this one just wasn’t really believable for me. I know, I’m talking about believable in a story in which the two main characters are fairies, but there you go.
Readers who enjoy farces will probably like this one. Readers who love fairies might or might not like it, but it is a different take on fairies.
Reviewed September 20, 2008
Read an excerpt.
Find author Martin Millar on his website, his blog, Twitter, and Facebook.
Buy The Good Fairies of New York at
Friday Flashback Reviews are a weekly feature here on The Introverted Reader. These are old reviews I wrote on GoodReads. Thanks to Angieville and her Retro Friday Reviews for the inspiration and encouragement!
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1 Comment
first, i love the idea of flashback fridays–what a great way to introduce readers to reviews they might have missed (especially if they don't have goodreads). second, this story seems a bit much for me. i read a faerie type ya book a while back and was getting annoyed left and right with elves, faeries and all the rest of them. thanks for an honest review!