The Changeling Queen, by Kimberly Bea, begins with the English folk song, Tam Lin. For those unfamiliar with the song, Tam Lin, an earthly knight, is the lover of the Faerie Queen. He is destined for the teind, a fee Faerie pays to Hell. But Janet, a human woman who is carrying Tam Lin’s child, pulls him from his horse and holds on through the magical changes the Queen throws on him. (A snake, a burning brand etc.)

The Faerie Queen, determined to win, tells Tam Lin and Janet her story. She hopes to trick them into surrender.

The Queen was raised by a human midwife and given a human name, Bess. For a time, Bess chooses to remain in the human world, working as a healer, and falling in love with Thomas Shepherd, the bastard son of a noble. But he chooses to marry a human woman and Bess, hurting and vulnerable to the machinations of the Dark God Amman, returns to the faerie realm.

Recommended. I enjoyed this. A better book in my opinion that deals with the Faerie Realm and the teind is The Perilous Gard, by Elizabeth Marie Pope. The Elizabethan world is believably depicted and the Faerie Realm and Faerie Queen carry an aura of menace. I reread this book regularly; it is that good.