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A novel by Diana Wynne Jones that retells the Tam Lin story in modern times.
Tropes include:[]
- Big Breasts, Big Deal: Nina is proud of developing breasts early.
- The Fair Folk
- Fat and Proud: When they are young teenagers, Polly admires Nina's body because it is curvier than her own. Towards the end of the book Polly also is somewhat plump.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Polly is manipulated into agreeing to forget about Tom...and she does.
- Maybe Ever After: The Mind Screw ending leaves some readers confused about where Tom and Polly's relationship will go.
- May-December Romance - Tom and Polly. They meet when she's a child, and he's old enough to have been married and divorced.
- Tom is actually only fourteen years older than Polly - he's ten years older than Sebastian, who is fourteen at the start of the book. So, by the end of the book, Tom is 33 to Polly's 19, which isn't so bad.
- Mind Screw - Wait, what happens at the end again?
- Our Dragons Are Different - They're made of garbage! And Tom's friend Sam.
- Parental Abandonment - Both Polly's mother and father send her away for the convenience of their love interests; fortunately her grandmother steps in.
- The Power of Love - The only way Tom (or any of the men Laurel targets) can be saved.
- Purple Prose - An in-story example - Polly writes like this until Tom gives her some rather odd tips.
- Rewriting Reality - Tom and Polly's stories have a slight tendency to come true...
- Shout-Out - to various literary works.
- Tom scolds Polly for plagiarizing The Lord of the Rings.
- Wife Husbandry - Tom has a fundamental role in Polly's development, something that's referenced in the book itself. They hook up in the end.