The Lost Queen (Faerie Path Series #2) by Frewin Jones

From the Publisher

Tania is a princess of Faerie.

And now she must return to the Mortal World.

Once upon a time, Tania was an ordinary girl. But then she was swept into another world, where she was the long-lost princess of the elegant and magical court of Faerie, and only she could save the court from great peril.

Now Tania—and her true love, Edric—will go back to the Mortal Realm to seek Queen Titania, lost hundreds of years ago while searching for Tania.

Their return leads to struggles with Tania's much-loved mortal parents and friends as she and Edric try to conceal their secret. But much more serious dangers lurk: The sinister Lord Drake is not yet defeated, they are pursued by dark supernatural forces, and Tania's two worlds are about to collide in amazing and frightening ways she never could have anticipated.

Children's Literature

In this second book of the series, Anita Palmer settles into her dual life as Anita and Princess Tania of Faerie and finds it very difficult to make both her human parents and faerie family understand the difficulties of her situation. Further, Tania has a task that she must accomplish for her Faerie family, that of finding Queen Titania wherever she may be. Without Titania’s return to Faerie, there is no way to free the mystical land from the clutches of the evil sorcerer king and his henchman Lord Drake, who still covets Tania and attempts to wrest her from the mortal world whenever possible. However, with the help of Edric and her sisters, Tania works to discover Titania’s whereabouts even as she prepares to play Juliet to Edric’s Romeo in the local high school production. While this is definitely a “light” book, the author does a solid job of providing dimension to the various faerie creatures and giving Tania’s 500 year history in the mortal world more meaning as she provides flashbacks that allow Tania to come to grips with the human component of her personality. This book is certainly not as complex as others that deal with the faerie regions, but it is strong enough that I look forward to the third book in the trilogy. Reviewer: Jean Boreen, Ph.D.

VOYA

AGERANGE: Ages 11 to 15.

At sixteen, Anita learns that she is actually Tania, seventh daughter of the Royal House of Faerie, who has been missing for 500 years. Before that, she was happily living in London like a normal teenager. In this sequel to The Faerie Path (Eos/HarperCollins, 2007/VOYA April 2007), Tania returns to the Mortal World after saving Faerie from her evil former fiancé, Gabriel Drake. Edric, her Faerie boyfriend, has come along to help find her mother, Queen Titania, who has been missing ever since Tania's disappearance. The minute she gets "home," after disappearing without explanation for three days, Tania's mortal parents ground her and ban her from seeing Edric. Tania cannot tell them about Faerie, so they have explosive fights after which Tania storms off to her room and slips into Faerie to spend time with her sisters. That conflict takes a backseat, however, when Drake escapes from exile into the Mortal World, bringing along his terrifying demon knights. The writing certainly can be awkward, twists in the story line are not always clearly explained or are too coincidental, and a cliffhanger ending keeps the story from feeling complete in itself. But the pace is action-packed, and fans will enjoy the daring rescue of the Queen, the relationship between Tania and Edric, the showdown with Drake, and Tania's sincere struggle to appease her mortal parents while also being true to her Faerie family. Although the covers and print size suggest a younger audience, this trilogy is more appropriate for and appealing to those twelve and up. Reviewer: Angela Carstensen
April 2008 (Vol. 31, No. 1)

KLIATT

To quote the review of the hardcover in KLIATT, September 2007: Anita Palmer/Tania, Princess of Faerie returns to the mortal world on a quest: to find her Faerie mother, Titania, and bring her back to Faerie. Accompanying her is Edric Chanticleer, whom her parents and friends know as her boyfriend Evan. Since she had been missing for three days from the hospital where she was recovering from a speedboat accident, her parents are overjoyed to see her. Her cover story, though, involves Evan, so they forbid her to see him outside of school. This makes searching for Titania much more difficult, but Tania perseveres, and through a lucky break, she and Edric find out where Titania is. Tania, though, is suffering flashbacks of her earlier mortal lives, and an inability to step into Faerie. This second book has some plot inconsistencies: for example, Tania learns that one of her former selves died with her family in a house fire, but she previously identified the family by the historical plaque on the house. Still, the storyline is strong, the writing is lively and vivid, and the breakneck pace at the end will keep the pages turning. There's an interesting plot twist, in that Tania will have to eventually choose between the mortal world and the world of Faerie. Jones's deft handling of her character highlights the difficulty of her decision. The other characters around her complicate her decision; they have complex personalities that make either choice appealing. While lacking some of the punch and element of surprise of the first book, The Lost Queen is still an inventive and appealing fantasy, and readers of the first book will be well pleased. Reviewer: Donna Scanlon

School Library Journal

Gr 6 Up In this sequel to The Faerie Path (HarperCollins, 2007), readers are reunited with Tania (aka Anita Palmer). The British teen has journeyed back from the Immortal Realm of Faerie with her true love, Edric, in her company. They have been asked by her father, King Oberon, to find Titania, his queen, who has been missing in the Mortal World for more than 500 years. Tania is still struggling with her dual identity as the child of mortal parents, whom she adores, and in Faerie, where she is a princess with six sisters. When the faerie world is threatened, the trouble spills into the Mortal World and Tania finds herself, Edric, and her faerie family in danger. She is beginning to remember her past lives and deaths. Can one 16-year-old girl find Titania, keep her sanity, and save both of her worlds? A story filled with love, magic, and hair-raising battles awaits readers in this second book in the trilogy.-June H. Keuhn, Corning East High School, NY

Kirkus Reviews

When last seen in The Faerie Path (February 2007), Anita Palmer had been whisked away from her home in modern-day London to the world of Faerie. There she discovered she was really a faerie princess and just barely escaped a dastardly plot by Lord Drake to trick her into marriage so he could usurp her father, King Oberon. Anita has now returned to London, accompanied by her true love Edric, to search for her missing faerie mother. Reunited with her human parents, with whom she cannot share the truth of her heritage, she feels both at home and out of place. Flashes of her previous lives haunt her, as do glimpses of Lord Drake reaching out to drag her into his world of exile and set free a doom of unknown proportion on all she loves-in both her worlds. When three of her faerie sisters are thrust into London, followed by evil Gray Knights, it becomes clear that she has to take steps not only to find her mother, but to close the seam between the realms. Once closed, which side will she be on? The story picks up nicely where it left off, and moves readily along with plenty of realistic touches that will appeal to the adolescent girls of today. And the cliffhanger ending will leave readers looking eagerly forward for the next volume in the series. (Fiction. 12-15)

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The Faerie Path #2: The Lost Queen AER

Chapter One

Camden, North London

The van's horn blared loudly in the quiet of the early morning London streets: three short bursts followed by a cheery whistle from the driver.

Princess Tania, seventh daughter of Oberon and Titania, King and Queen of the Immortal Realm of Faerie, turned her head to look. The driver of the van was half leaning out of the cab, grinning at Tania and her companion as the vehicle sped by.

Tania laughed. She didn't mind the effect she and Edric were having as they walked along together; it was quite funny, actually, and that driver wasn't the first person to have reacted enthusiastically to their strange clothes. They had already been on the receiving end of several odd looks on their journey from Hampton Court in southwest London to Camden in the north of the city.

Tania knew why they were getting these reactions: Their ornate clothes would have blended in perfectly in an Elizabethan court, but they struck an odd note in twenty-first-century London. Tania was wearing a full-skirted, olive green velvet gown with long sleeves and embroidered panels picked out in leaf green and russet red stitching. Edric's clothes were similarly archaic: a dark gray doublet and hose trimmed with black brocade and with puffed sleeves slashed to show a lining of pearl white silk.

Edric smiled. "He probably thinks we've been to an all-night costume party."

"Probably," Tania agreed. "One thing's for sure: He'd never guess the truth." She paused and gazed into Edric's wide, chestnut brown eyes. A thread of wind caught his dark blonde hair and whipped it around hissmiling face...the face of the boy she loved. A seventeen-year-old boy called Evan Thomas, who had turned out to be someone quite different...just as she had turned out to be a different person from the girl she had always thought she was.

Three days ago she had been Anita Palmer, an ordinary girl on the brink of her sixteenth birthday. Three days ago she had known nothing of the enchanted world of Faerie. She smiled to herself. Back then she had been only half alive.

Three days ago she had loved a boy called Evan, but now she knew who he truly was: Edric Chanticleer, a young courtier of the Royal Palace of Faerie.

The sharp click of heels on paving stones brought Tania out of her reverie. A woman was walking toward them, staring at them in amused curiosity.

"Hello, there," Edric said. "We've just come from the Immortal Realm of Faerie." He nodded to Tania. "She's a princess."

"Is she?" the woman said as she passed. "Good for her. The pair of you certainly brighten up the place."

"Thanks," Tania called as the woman walked on and disappeared around a corner.

Edric grinned. "You see? People are okay with the truth."

She looked thoughtfully at him. "So long as they think you're kidding," she said. "But that's not going to work with Mum and Dad."

Edric's face became serious. "No," he said. "I know it won't."

Tania glanced down at herself. "I can't turn up at home dressed like this," she said. "I'm going to have enough explaining to do without these clothes." She had been out of the Mortal World for three days since both she and Edric went missing from hospital following the speedboat accident...three days and nights for her desperate parents to fear the worst. She had to get back to them as soon as possible and let them know she was all right, but not in her Faerie gown.

Edric looked up and down the street. "The shops aren't open yet," he said. "It can't be much past seven o'clock. But even if they were open, we haven't got any money to buy clothes."

Tania frowned, thinking. "There's a charity shop not far from here."

"That won't be open, either."

"It doesn't matter." She gripped Edric's hand. "Come on. I know where we might find some things to wear."

St. Crispin's Hospice Shop, Camden

The charity shop had an assortment of items laid out in the window...everything from books and vinyl LPs to toys and games and ornaments. Deeper into the shop they could see racks of clothing and one shelf that appeared to contain nothing but folded crocheted blankets.

"Just like I said," Edric commented, peering through the glass. "It's closed."

"No problem," Tania said. "Come with me." She led him by the hand into a narrow alley that ran alongside the shop. A doorway was sunk into the wall about ten feet down the alley and up against the door, they found a pile of plastic bags, boxes, and bin liners.

"People leave stuff here for the shop when it's closed," Tania explained. "With any luck we'll find some clothes we can use. We can do a swap."

Edric crouched down and opened the nearest bag. He pulled out a garish green-and-purple knitted sweater. "What do you think? Should I try it on?"

"Over my dead body." She knelt at his side and started working at the knotted string that held closed the neck of another bag, hoping that the clothes inside would turn out to be more wearable than that purple-and-green sweater.

"Okay, I'm decent again," Tania said. She had changed in the shallow confines of the sunken doorway while Edric had turned his back and guarded her from the gaze of anyone passing the end of the alley.

He was already in normal clothes: a pale blue shirt and a pair of blue jeans two sizes too big for him, held up with a black leather belt.

Tania stepped out of cover. "Do I look all right?" The choice of clothing hadn't been ideal, but she had found a pink T-shirt and a calf-length, brown denim skirt. She had discarded her red velvet Faerie shoes in favor of a pair of white sneakers that fit reasonably well.

Edric smiled. "You look lovely," he said.