cover image Fairy Bad Day

Fairy Bad Day

Amanda Ashby. Penguin/Speak, $7.99 trade paper (352p) ISBN 978-0-14-241259-6

Sophomore Emma Jones has been training at Burtonwood Academy for years, expecting to follow in her late mother's footsteps and become a dragon slayer. Being made a fairy slayer is not in her plans%E2%80%94fairies are harmless and lame ("...the worst she'd ever seen them do was change the food labels at the supermarket"), nearly impossible to kill, and they love taunting her. Worse, she's forced to train with Curtis, the cute guy who took her dragon job. As Emma tries to change the principal's mind about her specialty, an extremely dangerous seven-foot-tall fairy that only she can see shows up. Now Emma needs to figure out where the creature came from, what it wants, how she's going to kill it, and most of all, how it knew her mother. In a fun mashup of the modern and the magical, Ashby (Zombie Queen of Newbury High) creates nicely developed characters and supports them with strong plotting and zippy writing. Laced with humor, danger, and romance, this book will have readers smiling all the way to the last page. Ages 12%E2%80%93up. (June)