The Mall Fairies: Exile

Book One in The Mall Fairies Series

A Novel by Conda V. Douglas

Genre: Middle Grade Fantasy

Release: February 24, 2012

Editor: B.L. Wilson

Line editor: Greta Gunselman

Cover Designer: Kaytalin Platt

Words: 66690

Pages: 211

ISBN: 978-1-927361-72-6

Price: $5.95

Back Cover:

Swoop the fairy lives in the attic of a shopping mall and loves it. She’s terrified of Outside, where fairies can die. But when Swoop finds her best friend One Wing in the company of a human, she determines she’ll do anything to save him from being exiled Outside.

Excerpt:

Swoop poised at the edge of the ledge and waited until One Wing came around to where he was blocked from Mrs. McDougall’s view for a few seconds. She jumped, flew down, and snatched One Wing off Rudolph.

Together they tumbled to the floor. With her wings, Swoop tried to break their fall. She failed.

One Wing landed on his only wing. “Ouch,” he squawked.

Swoop clapped a hand over his mouth. “Shhh.”

A brilliant green Christmas bell with a red bow hung over the front door, an old-fashioned door bell. It jangled when the security officer entered.

“Grandma?” the human said.  Not Officer Bob.

“One Wing?” Mrs. McDougall called out. “Where’d you go?” Her voice slurred the last into one word.

“What?” Grace asked. “Who? Grandma, it’s me.” Grace, the granddaughter.

Oh great, the security guard and the old woman’s granddaughter.

“Hi, Mrs. MacDougall.” Grace’s friend, whats-her-name, Joe or something. No, Jody. Typical cutesy human name.

Didn’t these people ever go home? In a second, they’d look and see two fairies and three wings. Then Swoop would have broken the First Law, too, which is exactly what she flew into the store to avoid. Swoop and One Wing needed to escape, now.

“Did you see that bird fly in here?” Officer Bob asked.

Swoop dropped her hand. I’m not a bird, I’m a fairy.

“Did you fall off the carousel?” Mrs. McDougall again.

“There’s nothing on the carousel,” Grace said, the exasperated annoyance in her voice clear to Swoop.

“Don’t say a word,” Swoop hissed to One Wing. She grabbed his wing and pulled him upright.  “Let’s get out of here. Now.” She pinched his wing. Hard.

He opened his mouth, saw her look, and yanked his wing from her grasp. He ran across the battered red and green glitter-sprinkled carpet toward the cabinet running along the length of a side wall.

“How do those nasty blackbirds keep getting in here?” Officer Bob again. “Flying rats, I call ‘em.”

I’m not a flying rat, I’m a fairy. Swoop scrambled after One Wing, wings flattened to keep up.

With his one wing held out for balance, One Wing could run faster than any other fairy. Lots of practice. He sprinted around an enormous blow-up-but-sagging Santa Claus. Swoop dashed right behind and caught up to his wingtip.

“What’s that?” Swoop heard Jody yelp. She tucked her head down to hide her sky blue face.

Behind the Santa the cabinet door stood cracked open a slice, just big enough for a fairy to slip through. Sideways. One Wing turned and slithered through in one swift, practiced motion.

She stumbled into the instant deep dark of the cabinet. She fell headlong into something furry and squishy that almost blocked the entrance. She threw out her arm onto some sticky thing stinking of mold.

She squeaked.

About the Author:

Conda discovered at age 10 that she was born to write. Published since she was 12, Conda grew up in a tiny mountain town in Idaho, in her folk’s funky art gallery. The inspiration for her Mall Fairies came from the swallows that live in the Boise Towne Square Mall. She’s traveled the world and her own tiny office, writing all the while. When not rescuing fairies from humans, cats, and themselves, Conda works on the next title in the Mall Fairy Trilogy.

Customer Reviews:

OMG! I'm looking at 66,000 words of 5-8 year old picture book material! I stopped short of pounding the 'book' on my desktop when I realized that it was my Kindle that would get the pounding. Bad idea.rnrnHeaving a huge sigh, I forged ahead reading about Swoop the fairy and her hot/cold struggle with the fairy laws and human Grace with her huge load of guilty baggage. I felt bad with Swoop when she discovers her best friend, One Wing, breaking Rule Number 1 of Fairy Law. He's not only shown himself to a human, but seems to be best buddies with the drunk old lady in the Christmas shop in the mall. Even worse, the old lady appears to have made a doll which looked exactly like One Wing. Fretting over this potential exposure of fairydom, Swoop decides to steal the doll and get her friend back to Haven, the fairy home located in the shopping mall's attic.rnrnMeanwhile, Grace is trying to figure out how to save the old drunk lady (who happens to be her grandmother) from being shipped off to the looney bin. After all, she claims to see fairies and spends half her time loaded to the gills. Grace also wants to get the heck out of the dead-end little town and go to a school of design. Double down on the guilt.rnrnNext time I looked at the clock, I was up a good hour past my usual lights out time. Yeah, I was dragged into this story despite my fear of it being a huge long sappy Disney barf festival of a fairytale.rnrnDamn it! Conda Douglas somehow made this made-for-toddlers world into an exciting and emotion-laden story of parallel lives: Swoop and Grace struggle mightily to solve the burdens placed on them by friends and family. They make mistakes and worsen the situations half the time, then have to race extra hard to make up for the errors.rnrnThe Mall Fairies is not a sugary little tale for kids barely past the picture book stage. It's just a darn good book about friendship, family, making mistakes, growing up, and getting wiser from being stupid.rn...More on Amazon

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