Greenteeth by Molly O’Neill

TL;DR: This one took me by surprised but I ended up so happy with it.
Source: NetGalley and purchased – thank you so much to myself and Orbit.

Plot: Jenny Greenteeth is just living a simple life caring for her pond when a witch is thrown in and her world is upended.
Characters: I loved everyone in this, even the high fae. I would read a whole series with these characters.
Setting: This was lovely, it wasn’t overpowering because this is definitely a character story but you could see and feel the world.
Fantasy: Again, this whole book is lovely. It’s based on magic and fae so it’s very fantastical while in a real world setting.

Thoughts:

In truth it was two things that drew me to Greenteeth. The cover and the blurb from T. Kingfisher. You get my favorite author on your cover and I’m likely going to at least try it. Greenteeth was a fantastic story and I’m so happy both of those things worked together to make me pick it up. This one follows Jenny Greenteeth, a fae happily taking care of her little lake and living a simple life. A witch is abruptly thrown into her waters and her life turns upside down as she attempts to help her. A quest begins, another friend joins and the three tackle tasks given by the high fae lord.

Greenteeth is a delightful character story. While there is a clear plot and path we’re inside Jenny’s mind the whole time. She’s not quite good and not quite evil as she likes to point out and she’s all fae. She’s one of the last lingering Jenny Greenteeth to exist and she’s grappling with the feeling of loss while she helps her friend Temperance. The story is a subtle but beautiful exploration of loss and grief with our big bad, the Erd King, being the devourer of magic. We also see a lot of friendship and how we can be friends even when we don’t agree (something that feels very relevant to this time in history).

I ended up loving this one. I’m beyond happy I sprung for my own copy so I can reread and annotate this as this is one I’m definitely going to revisit. If, like me, you love T. Kingfisher this is also an excellent read as the tone is similar though strong enough to stand on it’s own. A big recommendation from me.