Reviewed by Dan
TITLE: Haffling
SERIES: The Haffling #1
AUTHOR: Caleb James
PUBLISHER: DSP Publications
LENGTH: 261 Pages
Release Date: January 5, 2016
BLURB:
All sixteen-year-old Alex Nevus wants is to be two years older and become his sister Alice’s legal guardian. That, and he’d like his first kiss, preferably with Jerod Haynes, the straight boy with the beautiful girlfriend and the perfect life. Sadly, wanting something and getting it are very different. Strapped with a mentally ill mother, Alex fears for his own sanity. Having a fairy on his shoulder only he can see doesn’t help, and his mom’s schizophrenia places him and Alice in constant jeopardy of being carted back into foster care.
When Alex’s mother goes missing, everything falls apart. Frantic, he tracks her to a remote corner of Manhattan and is transported to another dimension—the land of the Unsee, the realm of the Fey. There he finds his mother held captive by the power-mad Queen May and learns he is half-human and half-fey—a Haffling.
As Alex’s human world is being destroyed, the Unsee is being devoured by a ravenous mist. Fey are vanishing, and May needs to cross into the human world. She needs something only Alex can provide, and she will stop at nothing to possess it… to possess him.
REVIEW:
I wasn’t sure what sure what to expect when I read the blurb for this book on our available books to review worksheet. It intrigued me enough that I decided to give it a shot. I’m glad I did. It was a well written tale of the world of the fey, or fairy, or faerie, breaking through into modern day Manhattan.
Alex Nevus is a super intelligent sixteen year old attending Stuyvesant High School, a school for the gifted in Manhattan. His life hasn’t been easy though. His mother has schizophrenia, and it is getting worse. Alex is doing everything he can to keep himself and his sister from being taken away from their mom and put back into foster care. The ended up in foster care once before…and really bad stuff happened.
Now Alex’s mother is missing. The very day she has to appear in front of the state reps to continue her disability, housing assistance, etc. If she doesn’t show up, at a minimum Alex’s little sister Alice will be taken into foster care.
Alex follows his mother’s cell phone GPS to a remote park at the north end of the island of Manhattan. But what he finds there won’t be just his mother. Maybe the land of the fey is real?
There begins a topsy turvy journey between our world and one that lies beyond. Along the way there will be a really cute, but straight, boy in Alex’s class, an assortment of various fairy species, an evil fairy queen, and a truth that Alex might, or might not, be ready for.
I recommend this book for anyone looking for a modern day tale of fairies. Notice I didn’t say a modern day fairy tale. There is a big difference. I, for one, much prefer the tale of the fairies. This tale is also a young adult read. There is no sex in the book, and there shouldn’t be, as it wouldn’t fit the tale. I saw that the book originally was published in 2013, but the end of this current edition has a teaser for book two, so I’m hoping we will see it soon!
RATING: 
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