Faerie Tale is a novel by Raymond E. Feist, Published in 1988.
Screenwriter Phil Hastings and his wife Gloria move back to his hometown with his teenaged daughter Gabby and their twin sons Sean and Patrick, where he hopes to focus on his efforts as a novelist. Gabby is initially upset to be pulled away from California to the backwoods of upstate New York, but a handsome neighbor begins to change her mind, while Sean and Patrick are thrilled by the woodlot and wilderness nearby to explore. As the family settles into their new home, strange things begin to happen, and evidence piles up that the previous owner was involved in mysterious happenings. Now the pact that holds the Faerie Court in check is nearing its end, and unless the Hastings family can learn what's happening and how to renew it, they will be the first victims.
This book provides examples of:
- Changeling Tale: Patrick is taken away by "the shining man" and replaced by a changeling. The family takes the false child to the hospital, and there is a chilling description of the changeling's behavior, and how modern medicine attempts to explain it (that his brain was damaged by fever, that they don't understand how his brain could look like it does under an MRI)
- The Fair Folk: Drive the plot. The good elves are dangerous and the evil ones are planning a genocidal war, and the Hastings' new home is at the center of it.
- Killed to Uphold the Masquerade: Subverted. The guy who figures out what's going on expects to be killed, but the Ancient Tradition people tell him not to be so melodramatic and give him Laser-Guided Amnesia instead.
- Kneel, Push, Trip: Sean and Patrick use a variant to defeat the Shining Man: Patrick gets on hands and knees behind the Shining Man, and Sean, who is a star Little League pitcher, grabs a handy baseball-size item and throws it at the Shining Man as hard as he can. The Shining Man stumbles backward from the impact, then falls over Sean and through a magical doorway, and becomes trapped on the other side.
- Tragic Monster: "The Bad Thing", was once a child.
- Would Hurt a Child: In general, there is the fact that the Hastings children are stalked by people who want to hurt them. Gabby is nearly raped by the "shining man" and it's heavily implied that he wants to do the same with Patrick and Sean.
