Far Far Away By Tom McNeal

"What follows is the strange and fateful tale of a boy, a girl and a ghost.  The boy possessed uncommon qualities, the girl was winsome and daring, and the ancient ghost... well, let it only be said that his intentions were good.

If more heavily seasoned with romance, this might have made a tender tale, but there was yet another player in the cast, the Finder of Occasions, someone who moved freely about the village, someone who watched and waited, someone with tendencies so tortured and malignant that I could scarcely bring myself to see them, and even now can scarcely bring myself to reveal them to you.

I will, though.  It is a promise.  I will."--Far Far Away.

And so begins our tale of Far Far Away.  McNeal's novel is narrative by Jacob Grimm, our ghost in the tale.  Jeremy is our boy and Ginger is our girl.  Together they all live in this tiny town that you can almost miss if you don't know what you are looking for.  The descriptions cast the town to be a small town where everyone knows each other and almost picturesque.  The main element in this story is fairy tales.  Jeremy is all about fairy tales (because the connection to his mother) and Jacob is a brother Grimm so of course being Jeremy's guiding spirit he also infuses the tale with other stories.  Perhaps that is one of my favorite parts of this novel, the connection to Grimm and also the way fairy tales are threaded to enhance the morals in the story. 

Far Far Away is adventurous, romantic, sad, and down right morally linked.  Jeremy learns to be something other than what he has been for the past 5 years.  Ginger learns that bringing yourself on an adventure might not be so bad.  Finally, Jacob learns to love and let go.  How these lessons are learned is the best part.  Beware the Finder of Occasions and remember everyone is suspect in this tale.  You will not be disappointed, even if at first it seems if it's not as interesting as I am making it out to be it really does get good and it really is a mysteriously amazing story.

4 out of 5 stars.  Thanks Net Galley