Tithe

Tithe is a young adult fantasy novel by the American writer Holly Black, published by Simon & Schuster in 2002 and recommended by the publisher for readers of twelve and up.

Kaye has been on the road with her mother's band for years and has no fixed home. She returns to the stretch of the Jersey Shore where she spent childhood summers and finds that the imaginary friends she remembers were not imaginary, and that the faeries she played with have plans for her. One of them has a claim on her, which is bound up with the discovery that she is not human as she has always assumed. The book was the first of a trilogy, and the author has described the setting as suburban fantasy rather than urban fantasy.

Two further novels, Valiant and Ironside, completed the trilogy, and Tithe was one of five finalists for the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award in children's literature. Kaye is sixteen, and the story begins in Philadelphia on a night when her mother's band is playing.