Blog Tour: Review of "Under a Fairy Moon"

Under A Fairy Moon by T. M. Wallace


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Genre: Middle Grade Fantasy
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Description from Goodreads: If you are longing for adventure and your family moves next-door to a beautiful garden full of lush plants and ancient stone, wouldn't you steal over to have a look at it – even if it was owned by the neighborhood witch? For Addy Marten the answer is obvious: It is only a matter of time before Addy sets out to explore the garden's winding paths and especially, the rows of mysterious stone statues that she has glimpsed through her bedroom window. Instead of the enticing hideaway she has imagined, however, she finds herself in a chaotic and dangerous place. The Garden takes on a persona of its own that both entices and threatens. Its dark, secret places lure her with their promise of hidden mysteries, then “surprise and wound” her with the “prick of stinging nettle claws and barberry teeth.” Too late, Addy discovers that she is a prisoner in the Median Realms and an unwilling pawn in an unusual game of Fairy Chess. She must use all her courage and wits to win the game and free herself from a malevolent group of fairy creatures and their twisted fairy-tale world.

My thoughts:
Addyson is fourteen and has a very active imagination. She has recently moved into a new home and the neighbor has an overgrown garden that is perfect for her to play pretend in. She doesn't realize that it is an in between place of the land of fairy and the human realm.

She finds herself caught up in a "game" to win her way home. It's kind of a game of chess.  In order to move across the board, she is put in situations where she is tempted and tried.  Whether or not she passes the test determine where her piece moves.  Her new friend Connor, who she found in the garden gets to play it with her. The stakes are much higher than her ability to go home, it is a fight of good against evil. She must not let evil win or the Elf King will take control.

I enjoyed reading this book. It is well written and has vivid imagery. T.M. Wallace was able to capture fairies as the trickster and not always benevolent beings that I like. Some of the creatures may be a little intimidating (scary) for younger readers, but I think everyone else will enjoy this book. There are a few parts that depict violence.

I received this book to review through my participation with Pump Up Your Book Blog Tours.

More on "Under a Fairy Moon" - also borrowed from Goodreads: A Publisher's Weekly Reviewer: An ABNA Publisher Weekly Reviewer has this to say: Maybe Addy didn’t fall down a rabbit hole, as Alice did, but after being swallowed up in a garden that morphs into strange environs and challenged to a do-or-die game by a stone Sentry sure to upset the realm of Fairy Queen Adalira, this story is a similarly hallucinatory adventure. In the human realm, 14 year-old Addy Marten has just moved to Windy Falls and is compelled to trespass in Mrs. Tavish’s garden where she meets Connor, a boy in a yellow raincoat. As the garden becomes an altered state, the duo is drawn into strange and dangerous territory where they are separated and strive to reunite in time for the Midsummer’s Ritual. Entrusted with Adalira’s crystal pendant, Addy tries to conceal it from evil characters such as Elf King and use its powers to win the game. A misbehaving pixie named Enitua steals the limelight as the novel’s most precocious character and later becomes a key ally in guarding the humans’ safety. UNDER A FAIRY MOON was a quarter-finalist in in the 2010 Amazon Breakthrough Novel competition.




You can visit T.M.'s webpage at http://www.tmwallace.com./

About the Author: ( Information and picture found at her website! ) 
T. M. Wallace lives in Ontario, Canada with her husband and four children. At eight years old, she won a short story contest and was published in a local newspaper. She wrote her first book at ten years old called “The Adventures of Pinkstar,” about a stuffed rabbit who magically comes to life. T. M. Wallace received her Master’s degree in English Literature from Carleton University and a degree in Education from the University of Ottawa. In 2010 her latest book, "Under A Fairy Moon,” was a quarter-finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel awards.