Excellent writing and interesting characters are brought down a little by a draggy plot. Still, it's worth a read to enjoy the author's deft hand at building suspense and empathy.

Changeling. The title alone should give readers some insight into the story. A changeling is defined as a child believed to have been secretly substituted by fairies for the parents’ real child in infancy. The center of the story is young Brian, the only child of Apollo and Emma. Apollo carries into his adult life, the pain of his father having abandoned the family when he was just four. He has recurring nightmares, or are they repressed memories, from that abandonment and vows to never put his son Brian in that same predicament. Apollo is determined to be a great and present father.

So when his wife Emma begins to experience signs of a serious case of what seems to be post-partum depression Apollo becomes protective of little Brian and ignores and dismisses Emma’s claims of strange pictures and text messages being sent to her phone. Is Emma having delusions? "But the answer is simple. You’re what’s wrong with our family, Emma. You. Are. The. Problem. Go take another pill.” Can Apollo afford to leave her concerns uninvestigated?

The book is paced well even though it clocks in at 448 pages, the prose is engaging and as the story moves from reality into the fantastical it doesn’t lose its grip, maintaining the allure established at the outset. The transition is jarring and the challenge for readers will be how comfortable can one be with this shift into monstrosity and does the novel retain the plausibility that is established early on. There are elements of the story that will give new parents pause, especially in regards to sharing information about your child via social media. Some of these elements are funny, others downright instructive.

Ultimately the pull of this novel rests in family relations, love and secrets that should be shared between parent and child. How far will one go to save their child, spouse? Is the withholding of information from your children always the best route even when the parent is doing so in service to the child? These are pertinent questions the novel raises. An interesting journey through the real world with side trips through phantasy. Safe travels. 3.5 stars. This advanced eBook was provided to me by Netgalley in exchange for a review. The book is scheduled for publication June 13, 2017

Oh yes. That's what I'm talking about. This is the sort of book that reignites the passion for the genre. I've read LaValle's Devil in Silver, which I liked a lot, but this dark fairy tale for adults definitely takes the cake. And slaughters it. It starts off like many fairy tales do...nice and normal story of a man who realizes there's more to life than buying and selling books, proceeds to fall in love and start a family. Fatherhood agrees with him, all is dreamily well...until his perfect life comes to a violent crash. Now his baby's gone, his wife's gone, his world has been turned upside down and he's about to find out the wizardry behind the curtain of normalcy. Bring on witches, bring on trolls, bring on...well, changelings. Fairy tales were meant to be scary, before Disney and Co. got to them. Fairy tales were meant to be something along these lines. LaValle gets it right, though he throws is his innate race observations and there's the ubiquitous use of modern technology, it's otherwise something straight out of Brothers Grimm, though with a Scandinavian twist. There's a great dramatic story too, about fatherhood, marriage, responsibilities, love, trust and so much more. Awesome backstory, mixed in with the quintessential NY immigrant saga, because this is very much a NY tale. It would have probably worked without the supernatural aspect as just a suspense story, but evils lurking in a dark, dark forest are the proverbial cherry on top. Terrifically entertaining ride. Most enthusiastically recommended. For more troll fun see Trollhunter, for more changeling fun read Keith Donohue's Stolen Child. And do yourself a favor, put some electric tape on your computer's camera, because you never know. And maybe ease off on social media. Fairy tales, after all must have a moral, and a moral here is when you make yourself a visible entity, you can't control who sees you and what sort of attention you'll invite. Paranoid, sure. But what if they're really after you? This is a perfectly apt fairy tale for a digital age. Food for thoughts. Thanks Netgalley.

A slow burn of a surreal modern day fairy tale, Victor LaValle's The Changeling takes it sweet time revealing just what sort of book it truly is. Guy-meets girl-have-a-baby-father-bails-leaving-son-with-abandonment-issues-when-he-finds-himself-faced-with fatherhood is a common enough theme. But then the book slowly keeps spiraling in unexpected ways which I will not spoil. Cleverly looking at internet trolls, "happily ever after," and the unparalleled joys of parenting despite the no-win expectations around parenting (helicopter parent and you're too involved, work-work-work to provide and you're a distant hazy vague outline of a parent) The Changeling is brilliant, crazy, funny, profound, and overall straight up bizarre gem.

Stayed up way past my bedtime to finish this novel. The Changeling is the perfect title. The story started off as a character piece about the life and times of Apollo Kagwa, then morphed into a crime drama which darkened into horror and finally took final form as a dark fairytale. The writing was fabulous and the pace, which began leisurely, intensified throughout the book. Highly recommended, especially for fans of horror, fairytale integrated stories (like Ivey's The Snow Child, for example) or magical realism.

Apollo Kagwa has abandonment issues. His mother Lillian, Ugandan by birth, has raised him alone since age four, when father Brian West vanished. For years, Apollo has had recurring dreams of a man knocking on the door and pushing his way into the apartment. He envisions being carried through a fog and wakes up screaming. Lillian is forced to leave Apollo alone for hours in order to keep the family afloat. Apollo, a self contained, bookish child is a voracious reader.

Childhood entrepreneurial experiences selling magazines has led Apollo to a career as a book man. He learns to value books, attending estate sales in search of rare and valuable books. Along with friend Army vet, Patrice Green, they search for preserved First Editions. The importance of turning a profit cannot be understated since Apollo's wife, librarian Emma, is due to give birth to their first child.

After son Brian's birth, the family's financial and emotional health changes. Emma experiences severe postpartum depression. But wait...Apollo uncovers a First Edition of "To Kill A Mockingbird" that he has appraised and authenticated. A buyer, William Wheeler, agrees to pay $70,000 for the tome. Apollo and Patrice are asked to bring the book to a location of William's choosing. This is when Scottish glamour, an old kind of magic, weaves its way into the midst. Illusions and altered reality make a baby no longer a baby. This clouded reality comes replete with internet predators watching the principals every move and documenting these moves for nefarious purposes.

"The Changeling" by Victor LaValle is a many layered novel. It is additionally a cautionary tale about the dangers of posting family photos and personal information technologically. Thank you Mr. LaValle for the suggestion of vigilance as a safeguard.

Thank you Random House and Net Galley for the opportunity to read and review "The Changeling".

This book is truly strange, truly unpredicatable in its scope. It is at once a story about family, about monsters, about the power of books, and more. I admire LaValle's insistence on keeping the reader on her toes--just when I thought I understood the direction the book was going to take, he took a sharp turn elsewhere. Any unevenness in the prose is balanced by the complete originality of the story.

The Changeling is an enchanting book where Victor LaValle draws out every detail to slowly bring you along on an emotional journey about the artistry of family. It has moments of beauty, pain, and just enough mystery to keep you curious as to what he will spring out of the hat next.

Apollo is the kind of man many women wish for but always seem to overlook. The guy who deserves a second look because he’s the one who will make you feel like a princess; LaValle has written a truly interesting character in him. Reading about Emma’s birthing experience made me glad I had a C-section. When the author starts describing how Apollo & Emma have their baby living on social media I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or groan. I’m pretty sure we’ve all known these kinds of parents who practically have their kid set up with a marketing team considering all the photos that post across every platform tech has created.

Eventually you get through the parts where this seems like any ‘normal’ book about a woman who was suffering extreme post-partum depression and it shifts into a magical side of the world where everything you know blinds you from seeing the truth. LaValle used early American history and tales from other cultures to create a rich world layered over the one we see every day. Characters out of our imaginations, or nightmares depending on your point of view, come alive to push you through a journey of self-discovery and adventure. The mysticism and old world religious beliefs made for an additional sense of wonder and intrigue.

Then you get to the root of the story, the dangers of social media, but even that is a benign description for the horror we have created. Technology has created online windows into our homes and families where we invite monsters from a Wes Craven movie to come tear up our lives then have the audacity to act outraged when we become victims of our own making.

The true magic of the story isn’t the trolls, witches, ancient pacts or anything else like that, it’s the love that the author was able to bring out of tragedy. It was showing what a parent is willing to do for their kid; that in the end love really does conquer all.

By the way, thanks Mr. LaValle for the advice – there is electrical tape over my computer’s camera to keep out the monsters.