The Stolen Child, by Keith Donahue
Actually, I’ve just finished it. It was one of those books that I enjoyed when I started and then part way through was thinking “when will it be over so I can move on to something else?”. The premise is that a young boy is stolen away by changelings and one of them substituted in his place. The story follows both characters as they adjust to life in the wild or in the middle-class world of small-town America. It’s an interesting premise, and I’ve always loved the myth of changelings. But somehow the story became – well, a bit of a tiresome examination of what constitutes the self. Now I’m on to Fangland.
This is a common problem with fantasy novels. It takes more than an interesting idea or an ironic twist to sustain a novel-length work. Perhaps it might have been better as a short story. — swm