Faery Tale: One Woman's Search for Enchantment in a Modern World Hardback - 2010

I wake up every morning with a sense of purpose: I am a tastemaker. As a book editor in New York City, I think about it constantly: What do people want to read? What will they want to read in one year? What about two? Mostly I acquire books that entertain women, that engulf them. When I think about the reader, I think about you. I buy books that I hope will make you smile, make you believe in the magic of love at first sight—I buy books that I hope will heal your heartbreak. I read all the time, big, thick manuscripts. It’s part of the job. Each night I take home chunks of pages in an extra shoulder bag. I read on the treadmill. I read while I’m eating my take-out dinner. I read before bed, propped up with a pillow, my glasses slipping down toward the tip of my nose. I’m beginning to wonder if carrying all the paper is the reason my right shoulder feels like it’s filled with marbles.

In the morning I get up and I flip on the radio. NPR and a cup of coffee. I’m always running late—I can never figure out what to wear.

I’m almost twenty-eight years old and I’m always trying to look older. I hate blazers and button-up shirts. I hate walking the streets of New York in high heels; the men gawk and the concrete wears them down until the metal pokes out the bottom. I lock the door and say goodbye to the cat, hoping for her that today, there will be pigeons.

I read on the subway, pressed up against a big man whose breath smells like rotten eggs and stale coffee. Next to me is a fat, middle-aged stockbroker, staring over the top of his Wall Street Journal at the gap between the taught fabric of a blond woman’s skirt. He has a slim gold wedding band on, and I wonder if the woman who gave it to him believed in love at first sight.

The train shoots underground and the faces around me look ashen in the yellow lights. I close my eyes for a moment, and everything, the lights, the people, the rapidly receding subway walls, slips away and I am rushing out into the bright sunshine. I walk up a long dune that leads to the beach, where I can hear the sound of the ocean. It sounds like a sigh. I open my eyes to see people looking back.

Has she fallen asleep?

I focus again on the pages in front of me. I tell myself, All I want is to heal some heartbreak. Upstairs in the glass-walled building, I flick on the desk lamp in my third-floor interior office. Without windows, the fluorescent lights give me a raucous headache, and I’m not usually a headache kind of girl. Glancing at my calendar, my eyes find the familiar photo pinned near the top of my bulletin board.

Have you ever looked at a photo so much that you can’t even truly see it anymore? I examine it again, trying to break it down into pieces. I see a man who looks far older than his sixty years, walking down a winding set of stone stairs. At his feet, a small brown-and-white dog is captured mid-movement, and he has turned to face the camera above him, his eyes gazing back at mine. The expression he wears is one of faux surprise: he hardly ever plays it straight for the camera. I know this, because neither do I. In a moment he’ll call out, Hey, you coming?

I see a flash of fabric breeze past my office door.

“Good morning, Signe,” my boss says.

“Good morning to you,” I say brightly. I flick on my computer and glance at the persistent blinking light on my phone.

You have five new messages.

I reach for the phone with one hand and my coffee with the other. Lately, I think, my face hurts from smiling.

“Hi, this is Signe Pike, returning a call . . .”

I am going to heal your heartbreak, because I have no idea how to heal my own.

"Faery Tale is enchanting. I don't believe in tiny magical creatures, but I do believe in a good story, and Signe Pike has given us one of those."
-A.J. Jacobs, New York Times bestselling author of The Year of Living Biblically

"Pike writes of her various encounters with faery-believers and faery lands... in a winning voice that roams freely from melancholy to mirth, incredulity to bright surprise."
-Kirkus Reviews

"Faery Tale is more than just a refreshing romp among waterfalls, searching for that shining, hidden race of spirit-people. It's Signe Pike's answer to a grief-sick heart. Whether you use the words faith or faeries, God or magic, Pike's thirst for belief is both moving and inspiring. She has a wild willingness to reach through her grief and abandon herself to life's adventures, and I felt so lucky to be along on her journey. Reading this book is like remembering that elusive magic of childhood. Pike went looking for enchantment; well she found it, and she left its light and gracious footprints across every page of this delightful book."
-Jeanine Cummins, bestselling author of A Rip in Heaven and The Outside Boy

"Finding happiness is an adventure that everyone should take, and Faery Tale inspires you to go on that journey."
-Lucy Danziger, Editor-in-Chief of SELF Magazine and author of New York Times bestseller The Nine Rooms of Happiness

"It's hard to decide what's more enchanting, Signe Pike's writing or the magical world she uncovers. This is a book for hopeful skeptics and believers alike. Proceed with caution, because Faery Tale may cast a spell that transforms the way you see the world forever."
- Jillian Lauren, New York Times bestselling author of Some Girls: My Life in a Harem

"I really didn't want to be entranced. I didn't want to be enticed into yet another world of strange fantasy beings. But with Signe Pike's Faery Tale-I was. Honestly. Thank you, Signe, for making us all more aware of the hidden dimensions of our earthly existence-for 'helping people believe in magic again'-and for showing us how such spirit-world magic can transform the perceptions of our own lives."
-David Yeadon, author of At the Edge of Ireland

"A beautiful book, wide open and shimmering, full of enchantment, pain, and sweetness. And Signe Pike is warm, open, funny, thoughtful, vulnerable, wise- reading her is like sitting over tea or around a fire with your best girlfriend, listening to her wildest tales."
-Carolyn Turgeon, author of Godmother: The Secret Cinderella Story "There's passion, excitement, and playfulness in Signe Pike's adventures as she plays with time and space and people . . . and words. If you allow yourself to hear what she hears and see what she sees, some of that magic will seep into your today."
-Rita Golden Gelman, author of Tales of a Female Nomad and Female Nomad and Friends

"Anyone who's ever seen something curious out of the corner of their eye, heard the million whispers of trees, or checked under their bed looking for more than dust bunnies will thrill to Signe Pike's Faery Tale."
-Cathy Alter, author of Up for Renewal: What Magazines Taught Me about Love, Loss, and Starting Over

"Youthful and sparkling with lots of pizzazz sums up Signe Pike's book Faery Tale. For questers of faeries and just plain magic in the world, you will have a most enjoyable read."
-Tanis Helliwell, author of Pilgrimage with the Leprechauns and Summer with the Leprechauns

"Magical and beguiling, tender and heartbreaking, Faery Tale is the work of a fiercely talented new writer."
-Michael Taeckens, author of Love is a Four-Letter Word

"Sweet, unsettling, and wise, Faery Tale tells the enchanting story of one woman's quest to make peace with the unseen. Signe Pike is searching for faeries, of course, but along the way she comes to terms with the ghost of her father, the steadfastness of her patient, adoring husband, and her own enormous heart. Faery Tale is a book for anyone who yearns to understand the invisible, by which I mean everything that turns out to be right in front of our noses."
-Jennifer Finney Boylan, author of She's Not There and Falcon Quinn and the Black Mirror

"Do fairies exist? There is a certain innocence in the belief that they do, and a certain magic in that innocence. With considerable humor and flair, Signe Pike asks us to return to the awe and innocence we knew as children. It's a worthwhile journey."
-Sharman Apt Russell, author of Standing in the Light: My Life as a Pantheist