SOLVED. YA (probably?) fantasy w/ female MC and pet peeve? [s]

[Jillin]

This has been driving me nuts for the past few weeks. I believe there were numerous books in a series or at least a sequel or two. The main character was a young woman or girl and she had a strange animal as a pet which people in this universe kept as pets and I want to swear that they were called "Peeves". (Try googling "book with pet peeves"--not very effective, while it seemed a funny enough play on words to me when I was 13!)

I feel as if the setting was in a land with deserts and castles/palaces. Definitely not set in the modern day or the real world. I believe there was magic. Perhaps the sky was a different color? (May not be the right book on that last one.) Does this sound familiar to anyone? I wish I could figure it out!

[Sue]

'Pet Peeve' by Piers Anthony? It's one of his Xanth series. Full of puns.

[Jillin]

Afraid not. That's the only book I came up with when trying to search Amazon, but the main characters were definitely human as I recall... Thanks for the guess, though!

[Cheryl]

Pet Peeve and Ophelia and the Pet Peeve came up when I just took the 's' off and searched right here on GR. I don't rec. using amazon - we volunteer GR librarians are fixing their book records all the time. Consider just a google-wide search, or a WorldCat libraries search if you don't get an answer on GR.

[Jessica]

Black Unicorn by Tanith Lee features a small furry animal called a peeve that the main character keeps as a pet. It can speak a few words, and finds a bone that later turns out to be part of the titular unicorn.

[Jillin]

That is absolutely it! Wow, thank you! I'm so glad to finally have it figured out!

[K.V.]

It's a trilogy: Black Unicorn, Red Unicorn, and Gold Unicorn. Great books!

[Kate]

I'm assuming it's Black Unicorn, right? Just so we can shelve the right book!

[Jillin]

Yup, Black Unicorn and it's sequels were exactly right!