Tag Archive | Fairy Tale

REVIEW: The Cottage in the Woods by Katherine Coville

Feb18
The Cottage in the Woods Book Cover The Cottage in the Woods
Katherine Coville
Middle Grade, Fairy Tale
Yearling
February 10, 2015
Paperback
400
11 Year Old Daughter's Bookshelf
December 2, 2022 - January 28, 2023

For fans of Shannon Hale, Adam Gidwitz, and Michael Buckley comes a luminous new twist on a tale readers only thought they knew. . .

Once upon a time, there was a girl with golden locks. But that’s just the beginning of this tale. The real story begins with a bear.

Ursula is a young she-bear who has come to work as a governess at the Vaughn estate. Although she is eager to instruct her young charge, Teddy, she is also frightened, especially when inexplicable things happen in the huge house after dark. Ursula is sure she has heard footsteps in the hallways at night, and that something is following her during her walks in the Enchanted Forest. Then there is Mr. Bentley, a young bear also employed by Mr. Vaughn, whose superior disposition is enough to drive Ursula to tears . . . and yet why does he also make her heart race? As Ursula works to unravel the mysteries of the Vaughn manor, she will have to be very, very careful. After all, true love, justice, and a girl with golden locks are at stake. And in the Enchanted Forest, not every fairy tale is destined for a happily ever after.

My Review

Personal rating: 2 Stars
Given rating: 3 stars (read on to find out why!)

Adorable cover. Adorable concept. Great start! And then…. it dragged. But the ending was good!

Before I go on, I have to preface this review with the following: I am not the target demographic. My daughter loved this book, I struggled. This is not a BAD book, it just wasn’t for me personally.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming… 

My 11-year old daughter picked this book out at the bookstore, brought it home, and devoured it. I had read the back cover and asked if I could read it next, and she of course said, “Yes!” 

So I started reading it. And it took almost 2 months to get through it.

Like I said above, the beginning of this book was great. The introduction of “baby bear” (Teddy’s) new governess, Ms. Brown, was a unique take on the Goldilocks and the Three Bears tale. But then it got depressing. Nobody was nice to Ms. Brown! Nurse was down right MEAN, right up until the bitter end! Papa Bear jumped to conclusions and never let Ms. Brown defend herself! But I kept reading, and thinking to myself, how did my daughter get joy from these miserable characters? 

The middle of the book dragged. For me, it was one of those books that I’d think about quitting but push on, then something interesting/redeeming happened, only to drag again. And repeat. 

The story is told in a very old writing style, and it was at times reminiscent of when I struggled through reading Pride & Prejudice and swore off books written before my own youth.

There are plenty of good things about this book.
1. It’s a unique spin on the classic tale. This wasn’t a tiny, rickety, old cottage, it was more of a grand manor belonging to very well-off bears in the Enchanted Forest.
2. There’s a strong message for tolerance and againstracism/prejudice. The parallels between our world and this fictional one are obvious, but done in a way for children to truly understand and be interested in.
3. Even the worst character was allowed some redemption, the author was able to develop them enough so that I still hated them, but I was able to understand where they were coming from.
4. The book is very well written!

Ultimately, this was not a book for me. It is however, a great book for the target audience (young readers) and truly does belong in elementary school libraries.

REVIEW: The Royal Deal by D. G. Driver

Jan26






The Royal Deal Book Cover




The Royal Deal




Chasing the Romantics #1





D. G. Driver




Fairy Tale




January 16, 2018




E-ARC




63




The Author




January 18 - 21, 2018



A pampered princess is told she must marry a prince she doesn't like, let alone love, on her nineteenth birthday. Desperate to find a way to stop this arranged marriage, she makes a bargain with her father. If she can survive for three months in the forest with no help of any kind and return healthy and unharmed, then she can choose the man she will marry. The King accepts the wager, knowing he can't possibly lose. Princess Faith knows she must win this deal, but once she ventures into the forest, she has no idea how she can possibly succeed.

Review

I’m a huge fan of D. G. Driver’s, so when she asked me to read and review her latest release, The Royal Deal, I gladly accepted.

This book isn’t quite like her others. For one, it’s a short novella. And secondly, it’s written as a traditional fairy tale, similar in style to Gail Carson Levine’s The Princess Tales.

I loved the concept of this fairy tale. Pampered princess doesn’t want to marry the prince she sees as irresponsible. She wants to marry his older brother, the prince who is responsible and devoted to his people. The prince who has also been missing since the last battle he fought in.

So Princess Faith makes a deal with her father to let her stay in the woods for three months, if she survives on her own she’ll get to marry whomever she desires. Should she return home, having failed, before the end of the three months, she will marry the young prince.

I loved that Princess Faith believes so highly of herself as an independent and self-sufficient person, but as soon as she enters the woods she learns she’s actually entirely unprepared. Even when a hermit living in the woods comes to her aid, she runs away, refusing to back down and accept help, thus negating the deal.

Faith’s stubbornness and belief in good were a delight. Even though she basically had zero chance of surviving on her own in the woods, she still made the deal to get out of the marriage she didn’t want.

The hermit was an interesting character as well. I don’t want to spoil his story, so I wont say much, just that as a reader I understood the moral/lesson the author meant for me to takeaway right away and liked it.

Unfortunately, I can’t give this 5 stars because there were so many more details I wanted to know! Novella’s are often tough for me, especially in fantasy (as fairy tales are) because they don’t give the details I crave. Everything moves so fast. BUT – this is my personal preference. If you shoved this story into a book of classic fairy tales I wouldn’t question it being there. Not for a second.

So ultimately, if you enjoy classic style fairy tales this could be a winner for you.

Quotes

Prince Jaeger of Aronsite had asked Faith’s father for her hand in marriage. Her father, the King of Devonedge, accepted. When he joyously told Faith the news the night before in front of a banquet full of people, Faith very calmly stood and replied, “I would rather be boiled alive in a vat of lava than marry that sniveling rodent that calls himself a man.”

“You haven’t any skills to survive. This is a wager you can’t possibly win.”
“Still,” she came back, “I’m willing to make it. I’m that against marrying Jaeger and ever hopeful that those three months will bring Mikhail home.”

Failure. Hopeless. Pathetic. Fool.
This mantra looped around and around Faith’s brain…

“Nothing in stories is ever completely accurate for everyone. Nor are stories ever entirely inaccurate about a great number of people.”

Yes, she could marry whomever she wished, but that didn’t mean she would. It didn’t mean she’d give up her nobility to be with a man who lived in the middle of the forest. Marrying for love was not how the world worked for princesses.

 

My (Writing) Life

Oh what to write, what to write!

I suppose, first of all I should apologize for going MIA for a while here. I’ll explain below.

But FIRST I should let everyone know that PEACE IN FLAMES is now available for preorder – WOOHOO!
If you’re in KU you’ll be able to read for FREE beginning Feb 16, 2018 OR you can preorder now and show your love.

In other news I’m nearing the end of my current draft of SUMMER OF PEACE. I anticipate getting this to my editor by early next week, then going through it again using text to speech. (Amazing what your eyes will skip over! Listening is key for proofing!)

If you’re a fellow reviewer and have any interest in reading/reviewing either/both PEACE IN FLAMES (YA Contemporary Romance) and/or SUMMER OF PEACE (NA – clean – Contemporary Romance) shoot me a message. I’d love help spreading the word about my book babies.

So to expand upon what I said above, I recently had about a week of deep depression and didn’t write or blog or really do anything. It was awful. Even reading brought me no joy and felt like a chore. Zero words were written and I second guessed everything I’d written to date. But I made it through to the other side and I’m looking forward to catching up posting my reviews here and diving back into my writing projects. My contemporary YA romance, tentatively titled SOMETHING I’M GOOD AT, is calling to me.

We also had a massive snowstorm four days ago. The roads were absolutely terrible and I was so grateful I didn’t have to leave the house. Unfortunately the schools did not let out early enough and I ended up with my kids school bus stuck in front of my driveway. It had spun around so it actually looked like it had pulled OUT of my driveway instead of like it had tried to drive past. But let me tell you, Minnesota Nice is a real thing because my feeble attempts to help dig the tires out with my snow shovel were met with the assistance of a neighbor across the street with his snowblower. When the bus got stuck again, he was right back out there helping the driver out by clearing more snow. It was a combination of awful/hilarious/amazing to see all of this happening.

And now I need to get ready for a busy night at work. #hotellife

REVIEW: Snow White’s Revenge by Casey Lane

Feb7

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.

Get the Book by signing up for Casey Lane’s newsletter here!

~ Add to Goodreads ~

 

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

Dec27

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

~ Add to Goodreads ~

 

 

Preorder the sequel, The Wish Granter, here:

Amazon | Nook | iBooks | Kobo

~ Add to Goodreads ~

 

 

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.”