The Faerie Ring by Kiki Hamilton

[hayleyb1]

The Faerie Ring is a fantasy novel inspired by Scottish faerie legends combined with Victorian era London. This story is about a young girl that loses her parents to disease, runs away from her predatory uncle, and becoming a pickpocket that threatens the balance of peace between our world and the faerie kingdom. Tiki is introduced to royalty both by accident and by conning her way into Buckingham Palace twice and manages to accidentally steal a magical ring that holds the truce in effect between realms.

While the basic story itself is a fairly original combination, the delivery of the details becomes reminiscent of many other stories throughout the last few hundred years (such as Oliver Twist). Kiki Hamilton reveals the plot lines twists and turns with every hint to the point that the reader can predict the majority of the storyline in just the first few chapters. This paired with the length of time between revealing clues and the actual events of the thefts or deception, created a very long and tedious read that was not very good at keeping me from being tempted to skip entire chapters to get to the point.

The entrance of Tiki into the queen’s palace was not realistic because she just walked in and back out with the ring with very little trouble and no guards, and the second time she entered the palace was just as simple with absolutely no trouble other than suspicious questions on Tiki’s part. Every part of the book was predictable and simplistic while masquerading as complicated, genius plans with no suspense. My suggestion to the author if she plans to continue the series is to have more mystery by not revealing word-for-word what the announcement flyers say, therefore giving away the entire solution to an issue, and taking five chapters to have the characters figure out the solution. If the monotony and repetition were corrected by the author, should she choose to continue the story as a series, then I believe her work would be more widely appreciated.

The only aspects I found genuinely interesting were the proper and well researched use of Gaelic terms and phrases, the folding of the ancient faerie tales in with the storyline, and the general idea that the book follows. It would be a fine book for preteens and the younger sections of young adults interested in this genre for the simplicity and modern spin of old tales like the original Cinderella and Oliver Twist. The plot was fun, the combination of these places and tales, and the representation of impoverished Victorian children was interesting, but as stated before, the delivery method needs work.