A series of New York Times bestselling fantasy books by Aprilynne Pike, featuring a young home-schooled girl named Laurel Sewell who transfers to public school, finds out she's actually a faerie changeling, falls in love with two boys, and fights trolls.
The first three books are titled Wings, Spells and Illusions; the fourth one, Destined, was released in 2012.
These books provide examples of:
- Aesop Amnesia: Laurel is unfortunately prone to this. She ignores her mentor Jamison's warning not to get complacent - twice - and Shar's warning (see What the Hell, Hero? below) has no effect on her actions whatsoever.
- All Myths Are True: Laurel is constantly finding faerie history behind various legends: A Midsummer Night's Dream, King Arthur, even Genesis.
- Almost Kiss: Laurel and Tamani are prone to these.
- Always Chaotic Evil: Trolls. Laurel points out conscientiously that there might be good trolls, but neither she nor the reader has met one yet.
- Bodyguard Crush: Tamani appoints himself Laurel's fear-gleididh, or protector for life.
- Changeling Fantasy: Laurel finds out she is a "scion", selected to inherit her foster-parents' land and bring it into faerie possession.
- Charm Person: The Spring faeries' only power, which only works on humans.
- Chekhov's Gun: "How long can you hold your breath?"
- Dances and Balls: A lot of the action seems to happen coming home from them.
- Enemy Mine: Klea, a faerie working with trolls.
- Extranormal Institute: The Fall Faerie Academy, though of course it's quite normal in Avalon.
- Fantastic Caste System: Faeries are divided according to the season of their birth: Winter (the ruling class, extremely powerful and rare); Fall (healers and scientists, including Laurel); Summer (entertainers, illusionists) and Spring (the working class, including Tamani). Unlike some examples, the Spring faeries are still very well off — no unemployment, poverty, etc. — but the protocol still grates on Laurel's democratic nerves.
- Former Friend of Alpha Bitch: Mara, a classmate of Laurel's at the Academy who holds a grudge against her for winning the position of the scion over her head.
- Freakiness Shame: David calls Laurel's blossom "sexy".
- Granola Girl: Laurel is a vegan raised by hippie parents who believe in natural medicine. Justified, as she's a sentient plant and can't even digest animal foods.
- Gratuitous Foreign Language: Faeries speaking Gaelic; their closest connection to the human world is a manor in Scotland.
- Green-Eyed Monster: David and Tamani are fiercely jealous of each other, as are Laurel and Yuki in the third book.
- He Knows Too Much: The reason why Barnes, the Big Bad of the first two books, has David and Laurel thrown in the river.
- Hold Your Hippogriffs: Plant-related faerie idioms such as "same fruit, different bough".
- Hooked Up Afterwards: Chelsea and David, though it's subverted in the epilogue when it's revealed that Chelsea and David eventually broke up.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Each of the books has a plural One-Word Title, except for the last, a Verbed Title, which is a One-Word Title subtrope.
- Wings
- Spells
- Illusions
- Destined
- I Have a Family: Shar, admonishing Laurel to take her mission seriously: "I have a daughter, did you know that? (...) And I'd like her to have a father for at least the next hundred years, thank you very much."
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Chelsea to David when he falls in love with Laurel. Though after Illusions, she might have a chance with him after all ...
- Internalized Categorism: Tamani internalizes his Spring faerie status, much to Laurel's annoyance.
- It Meant Something to Me: Yuki is only at Laurel's school to spy on her for Klea, but she actually develops feelings for Tamani, who only seduces her to get more information on Klea's plans.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: In the final book, David chooses to erase his memories of what happened at the final battle to defend Avalon.
- Meaningful Name: One meaning of the Japanese name Yuki is "snow", and Yuki is a winter faerie.
- Memento MacGuffin: The baby ring Tamani gives Laurel.
- Neutral Female: Subverted. When David and Tamani get into a brawl over Laurel, she breaks up the fight, tells them she's through with both of them, storms off - and spends the rest of the day kissing Tamani.
- No Periods, Period: Laurel never does get a human period, but the faerie equivalent - growing a blossom out of her back - is discussed in detail.
- Older Than They Look: Faeries can reach up to two hundred years in age.
- Snicket Warning Label: In the end of the final book in the series, the author warns the readers that they shouldn't read the epilogue if they don't want to spoil the happy ending. David and Chelsea get together, but break up. David decides he wants to erase all memories of meeting Laurel, getting involved in the faerie world, and killing all the trolls.
- Sword In The Stone: The original Sword in the Stone can be found in Avalon, and only humans can touch it.
- Test Kiss: Laurel shares a literal, scientific test kiss with each of her boys: David, to find out if she exhales oxygen like a plant, and later Tamani, to see if she can "sense" him with her Fall faerie powers.
- Took a Level in Badass: In Spells, David starts bodybuilding and reveals his skill with a gun in order to be more helpful to Laurel.
- Verbed Title: The final book, "Destined".
- What the Hell, Hero?: Shar delivers a stinging speech to Laurel about the way she's been flirting with Tamani while still dating David.
- Why Couldn't You Be Different?: Laurel's foster-mother struggles with the idea of Laurel being a faerie, although she does come to accept it later on.
