Tag Archive | Snow White

REVIEW: Snow White’s Revenge by Casey Lane

Snow White’s Revenge by Casey Lane

Series: Fairy Tales Forever #0.5

Read: January 31 – February 1, 2017

Format: ebook

My Book Rating: 4 Stars

Publisher: Casey Lane

Release Date: July 12, 2016

Genre: YA Fantasy / Fairy Tale

Reading Challenge(s): TBR Challenge 2017, Beat The Backlist 2017, 2017 YA Reading Challenge, Retellings Reading Challenge 2017

 

ABOUT THE BOOK

She’s a prisoner. He wants an adventure. Together, they’ll change a kingdom forever.

Read the prequel novella to a new series of standalone fairy tale novels from Casey Lane!


REVIEW

I received a copy of this novella when I subscribed to author Casey Lane’s newsletter. (And you can too!)

This quick read tells the story of Princess Snow White. Her parents, the king and queen, have been murdered and the new Queen Lacey has taken over the throne. She sends her huntsman out to find Snow, who was not in the castle at the time of her takeover. After two years on the run, being hunted, Snow is caught and thrown in the dungeon.

The story begins something like 8 years later when Prince Strife visits the castle. His parents hope to create an alliance between the kingdoms.

What started as a pretty generic take on the tale of Snow White soon turns around. Snow White is no damsel in distress, waiting for her prince to save her. In fact, more often than not Snow does the rescuing! She’s a pretty badass princess. I mean, she survived in the forest alone for two years, she’d have to be pretty badass, right?

Prince Strife on the other hand is a pampered privileged young man. He gets tangled up with Snow and she ends up having to save his butt.

The only gripe I had was the love between these two. They spend most of the story bickering, but when Snow kisses him suddenly it’s true love. I mean, it’s a fairy tale, but I would have liked a little more lead up to that.

All in all, this is a decent tale of Snow White. I look forward to reading more from Casey Lane in the future. I only hope her full length novels have a little more meat to bridge the gap between meeting and falling in love.


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QUOTES

Snow let an entertaining image dance across her mind: her slicing Ratface’s throat with the thorn of a rose.

“When he homed in on Queen Lacey’s perfection, he realized nothing was glowing quite like her. It was like her edges were frayed. Like the reality she projected wasn’t exactly what it seemed.”

“I succeeded at playing hero! I literally rescued a princess. And now the ungrateful damsel is trying to run away from me. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Snow met his eyes. “Try calling me a damsel again. We’ll see how long I stick around.”

She closed her eyes. “You saw the Queen. How could anyone say that I hold a candle to her beauty?”
“Strife was silent for a few seconds. He locked eyes with her. “Is this one of those times when I’m supposed to play the girlfriend who says, ‘Are you kidding me? You’re the most beautiful girl that ever lived!’?”

“You’re saying I need a man to help me? That’s some chauvinist forest crap right there.”

 

REVIEW: The Shadow Queen by C. J. Redwine

This review is seriously overdue for my blog. Wow.
Well, consider this promo for the series before the sequel comes out in early 2017!

If you like badass heroines and fairy tales and retellings this one is for you.


 

The Shadow Queen by C. J. Redwine

Series: A Ravenspire Novel

Read: August 30 – September 6, 2016

Format: Ebook (Kindle)

My Book Rating: 5 Stars

Publisher: Scholastic / Balzer + Bray

Release Date: February 16, 2016

Genre: YA Fairy Tale Retelling

 

ABOUT THE BOOK

Lorelai Diederich, crown princess and fugitive at large, has one mission: kill the wicked queen who took both the Ravenspire throne and the life of her father. To do that, Lorelai needs to use the one weapon she and Queen Irina have in common—magic. She’ll have to be stronger, faster, and more powerful than Irina, the most dangerous sorceress Ravenspire has ever seen.

In the neighboring kingdom of Eldr, when Prince Kol’s father and older brother are killed by an invading army of magic-wielding ogres, the second-born prince is suddenly given the responsibility of saving his kingdom. To do that, Kol needs magic—and the only way to get it is to make a deal with the queen of Ravenspire, promise to become her personal huntsman…and bring her Lorelai’s heart.

But Lorelai is nothing like Kol expected—beautiful, fierce, and unstoppable—and despite dark magic, Lorelai is drawn in by the passionate and troubled king. Fighting to stay one step ahead of the dragon huntsman—who she likes far more than she should—Lorelai does everything in her power to ruin the wicked queen. But Irina isn’t going down without a fight, and her final move may cost the princess the one thing she still has left to lose.


REVIEW

I haven’t read many of fairy tale retellings, but those that I have read I’ve loved, and The Shadow Queen is no exception!

In this retelling of Snow White and The Huntsman we follow Princess Lorelai in the role of Snow White. She’s no damsel in distress though, when she fled her wicked stepmother, she took to learning to fight and defend herself.

The huntsman in this story is Prince Kol. He’s from a neighboring kingdom of dragon shifters and desperate to save his kingdom from the invading ogre army. So desperate he’d do anything, including making a deal with the evil queen. A deal that goes very wrong.

I loved the chemistry between Lorelai and Kol. On their own they’re great, both strong and willing to do anything for their people. But together? *Swoon* Their relationship had a few plot twists that kept things from getting boring.

I loved the magic in this book. The incantations were really interesting and the powers Lorelai and Queen Irina possessed were really cool. Especially Irina’s apples! And everything, including the rivers, trees, and earth, having a ‘heart’ for their magic to call upon for assistance. The authors choice to make Kol from a dragon shifter people was also especially awesome and as soon as I read that I knew I’d be hooked on the story.

There was never a dull moment in this book and I was eager to keep reading (or listening to my Kindle read the book aloud to me at work!)

I think those who love fairy tale retellings will appreciate this rendition. It had all of the staples of Snow White—evil witch, runaway princess, magic, apples, handsome prince, huntsman, hearts—but with the authors own unique magic twists. Plus there are dragon people. How cool is that?

Go buy this book now and read it. Seriously.

 Psst! This is also a stand along series – check out the cover below for the next book ‘The Wish Granter’ which releases Feb 2017!



Get The Shadow Queen here:

Amazon | Nook | iBooks | Kobo

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Preorder the sequel, The Wish Granter, here:

Amazon | Nook | iBooks | Kobo

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QUOTES

 

“Mirror, mirror in my hand, show me the state of Eldr’s land.”

“Why does it have to rhyme?” Trudge muttered.

 

Only a miracle would save him now, but miracles didn’t happen in Ravenspire.

Miracle’s didn’t happen, but magic did.

 

He shook his head, trying to think, to remember, but his dragon heart blazed within him, begging for blood and fire.

 

He was fire. His chest burned with every breath, and only the girl’s heart would make it better.

 

“No! I mean…we’ll be fine. We’re just going to talk.”

Gabriel snorted. “That’s what we called it in my day too.”

 

You make me want to break one of your ground rules every time you look at me like this.

 

Did she love him? What would it cost her if she did.

 

“…The strength of my heart is the only thing standing between you and total destruction.”

 

“You don’t go into battle because you’re sure of victory. You go into battle because it’s the right thing to do.”