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The year’s best Fantasy and Horrror 2006 19th annual collection
Ellen Datlow, Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant
6.0
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The legendary anthology is back, with witches and warlocks, fairy rings and gothic tales. "The...
BookwormMama14 (18 KP) rated The Beautiful Pretender (A Medieval Fairy Tale, #2) in Books
Jan 2, 2019
Forced into deception by the Earl of Plimmwald, will Avelina be able to keep up the facade of being his daughter Lady Dorothea?
The king has ordered Reinhart, the new Margrave of Thornbeck to marry. Knowing he can not deny the king, Lord Thornbeck summons the ten women the king has chosen as suitable matches. For two weeks he plans to test these women to find the most noble lady among them, and choose her as his bride. Little does he know that not all of the ladies presented to him are truly born of nobility. When Avelina arrives at Thornbeck castle, masquerading as Lady Dorothea, she is convinced she will be found out. However as the days pass, she finds it easier to pretend to be a lady, instead of the maidservant she truly is. She has two goals: To make sure no one discovers that she is a servant, and to keep Lord Thornbeck from choosing her as his bride. For if her secret is revealed, destruction and ruin will be brought upon Avelina and her family.
The Beautiful Pretender is "Happily Ever After" at its finest! Melanie Dickerson has a beautiful gift for bringing classic fairy tales to life in an incredibly new and different way. Every page is filled with beautiful descriptions of the castle, clothes, grounds and lifestyle of the medieval times. These fairy tales (and especially Avelina's story) are much more realistic than the Disney adaptations (however I am addicted to fairy tales in general), and makes me feel like these stories could have actually happened. The Beautiful Pretender will have you biting your nails from the first page and there are plenty of suspenseful moments that will keep you turning those pages until you can not keep your eyes open any longer! (Yes, I say this from experience...) This story is such a lovely romance. Seeing in our characters something that I believe we can all identify with, the desire to be wanted and loved for who we are. And we must never forget the One who loves us more than anyone ever could. He who loves us exactly as we are, regardless of our heritage and in spite of our imperfections. Never forget that as a son or daughter of our Lord, you are royalty.
I received a free copy of The Beautiful Pretender from Thomas Nelson Publishers through Book Look Bloggers in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed are mine alone.
The king has ordered Reinhart, the new Margrave of Thornbeck to marry. Knowing he can not deny the king, Lord Thornbeck summons the ten women the king has chosen as suitable matches. For two weeks he plans to test these women to find the most noble lady among them, and choose her as his bride. Little does he know that not all of the ladies presented to him are truly born of nobility. When Avelina arrives at Thornbeck castle, masquerading as Lady Dorothea, she is convinced she will be found out. However as the days pass, she finds it easier to pretend to be a lady, instead of the maidservant she truly is. She has two goals: To make sure no one discovers that she is a servant, and to keep Lord Thornbeck from choosing her as his bride. For if her secret is revealed, destruction and ruin will be brought upon Avelina and her family.
The Beautiful Pretender is "Happily Ever After" at its finest! Melanie Dickerson has a beautiful gift for bringing classic fairy tales to life in an incredibly new and different way. Every page is filled with beautiful descriptions of the castle, clothes, grounds and lifestyle of the medieval times. These fairy tales (and especially Avelina's story) are much more realistic than the Disney adaptations (however I am addicted to fairy tales in general), and makes me feel like these stories could have actually happened. The Beautiful Pretender will have you biting your nails from the first page and there are plenty of suspenseful moments that will keep you turning those pages until you can not keep your eyes open any longer! (Yes, I say this from experience...) This story is such a lovely romance. Seeing in our characters something that I believe we can all identify with, the desire to be wanted and loved for who we are. And we must never forget the One who loves us more than anyone ever could. He who loves us exactly as we are, regardless of our heritage and in spite of our imperfections. Never forget that as a son or daughter of our Lord, you are royalty.
I received a free copy of The Beautiful Pretender from Thomas Nelson Publishers through Book Look Bloggers in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed are mine alone.
Goddess in the Stacks (553 KP) rated Spinning Silver in Books
Dec 25, 2018
I had previously read Uprooted, and adored it, so I was eager to get my hands on this book as soon as it came out. I was very excited to see it as a Book of the Month choice for July, and quickly made it my pick!
I received the book last weekend while I was at Anthrocon, so I didn't get a chance to sit down with it until yesterday. (It officially came out Tuesday.) I proceeded to read straight through the entire book because it was SO. GOOD. Novik writes absolutely ENTHRALLING fairy tales. And in Spinning Silver, she has written fae as beautiful, alien, capricious, and as absolutely bound by rules as they should be. Doing a thing three times, even by normal means, gives one the power to ACTUALLY do the thing; in Miryem's case, turning the Staryk's silver into gold (by creative buying and selling) means she gains the power to LITERALLY turn silver into gold. Which then gets her into the trouble the rest of the book is built on.
One of my favorite lines was very near the end of the book, about the Staryk palace:
"The Staryk didn't know anything of keeping records: I suppose it was only to be expected from people who didn't take on debts and were used to entire chambers wandering off and having to be called back like cats."
My only real quibble with the book is that it shifts viewpoints between at least five characters, and doesn't start their sections with names or anything, so it takes a few sentences to figure out who's talking. It never takes too long, but it did occasionally make me go "Wait, who is this....ah, okay."
The plotlines weave in and out of each other's way for most of the book before all colliding into each other at the end and showing how everything connects. I was definitely confused on occasion, but it was that enchanting Alice-in-Wonderland kind of confusion more than actual puzzlement. The book is, by turns, a mix of Rumpelstiltskin, Tam-Lin, Winter King vs Summer King, Snow Queen, and a little Hansel and Gretel. I love seeing elements of so many fairy tales woven together and yet still remaining recognizable.
And the ending! Oh, the ending was absolutely, marvelously perfect.
I loved this book, just as much as I loved Uprooted. I can't wait to see what fairy tales Novik spins next!
You can find all my reviews at http://goddessinthestacks.com
I received the book last weekend while I was at Anthrocon, so I didn't get a chance to sit down with it until yesterday. (It officially came out Tuesday.) I proceeded to read straight through the entire book because it was SO. GOOD. Novik writes absolutely ENTHRALLING fairy tales. And in Spinning Silver, she has written fae as beautiful, alien, capricious, and as absolutely bound by rules as they should be. Doing a thing three times, even by normal means, gives one the power to ACTUALLY do the thing; in Miryem's case, turning the Staryk's silver into gold (by creative buying and selling) means she gains the power to LITERALLY turn silver into gold. Which then gets her into the trouble the rest of the book is built on.
One of my favorite lines was very near the end of the book, about the Staryk palace:
"The Staryk didn't know anything of keeping records: I suppose it was only to be expected from people who didn't take on debts and were used to entire chambers wandering off and having to be called back like cats."
My only real quibble with the book is that it shifts viewpoints between at least five characters, and doesn't start their sections with names or anything, so it takes a few sentences to figure out who's talking. It never takes too long, but it did occasionally make me go "Wait, who is this....ah, okay."
The plotlines weave in and out of each other's way for most of the book before all colliding into each other at the end and showing how everything connects. I was definitely confused on occasion, but it was that enchanting Alice-in-Wonderland kind of confusion more than actual puzzlement. The book is, by turns, a mix of Rumpelstiltskin, Tam-Lin, Winter King vs Summer King, Snow Queen, and a little Hansel and Gretel. I love seeing elements of so many fairy tales woven together and yet still remaining recognizable.
And the ending! Oh, the ending was absolutely, marvelously perfect.
I loved this book, just as much as I loved Uprooted. I can't wait to see what fairy tales Novik spins next!
You can find all my reviews at http://goddessinthestacks.com
Haley Mathiot (9 KP) rated Snow White & the Huntsman in Books
Apr 27, 2018
You know what I love? Creatively re-told fairy-tales. You know what I hate? Terribly re-told fairy-tales made into crappy movies and then made into a book, written with poor prose. That pretty much summarizes how I feel about this (audio)book.
Let's start with the good:
1. The narrator was excellent. She also read for Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Why We Broke Up, the Iron King, and many other audiobooks. She made even the dullest most pointless sentences, pieces of dialogue, and descriptions sound interesting, and managed to hold my attention most of they way through the audiobook (until I stopped for dinner, and then realized I really didn't want to start listening again.)
2. It was fast-paced. The plot never slowed... but there were parts where the unneeded descriptions seemed to slow down and break the tension, or unnecessary interior monologue broke the mood.
3. The bad guys were very bad, and the good guys were very good. It made it a classic hero-vilan fairy-tale.
Now for the not-so-good:
1. Poor writing. It wasn't Stephenie-Meyer Terrible, but every sentence started with "he..." "she..." "He said," "She felt..." and it felt repetitive and boring. There was no sentence structure besides basic subject-verb-direct object. Also, the adjectives, adverbs, and overall descriptions and vocabulary was boring, expected, and unfeeling.
2. Who names a princess "Snow White?" Really? I can see naming her "Snow" or something, but if you're going to re-tell a fairy-tale, at least give your heroine a name that doesn't stick out like a sore thumb. I realize that this is a complaint about the movie screenplay, not the book adaption... but still. It felt awkward to have all these names like William, Eric, Gus, Anna, Lilly, and... Snow White.
3. The bad guys were soul-less, and the good guys were perfect. Even bad characters have some redeeming value as to why you kind of wish they didn't have to die, but they're bad so you have to kill them. The bad guys in this story were just so bad, there was no way you could not hate them. The good guys were flawless: children obeyed their parents, men saved their women, women sacrificed for their families, and Snow White was a sweet innocent little angel. I'm sorry, but even good guys have a bad side. And if you're perfect, I couldn't care less what happens to you, because I can't relate to you.
So that is, essentially, why I stopped listening to the audiobook halfway through.
Let's start with the good:
1. The narrator was excellent. She also read for Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Why We Broke Up, the Iron King, and many other audiobooks. She made even the dullest most pointless sentences, pieces of dialogue, and descriptions sound interesting, and managed to hold my attention most of they way through the audiobook (until I stopped for dinner, and then realized I really didn't want to start listening again.)
2. It was fast-paced. The plot never slowed... but there were parts where the unneeded descriptions seemed to slow down and break the tension, or unnecessary interior monologue broke the mood.
3. The bad guys were very bad, and the good guys were very good. It made it a classic hero-vilan fairy-tale.
Now for the not-so-good:
1. Poor writing. It wasn't Stephenie-Meyer Terrible, but every sentence started with "he..." "she..." "He said," "She felt..." and it felt repetitive and boring. There was no sentence structure besides basic subject-verb-direct object. Also, the adjectives, adverbs, and overall descriptions and vocabulary was boring, expected, and unfeeling.
2. Who names a princess "Snow White?" Really? I can see naming her "Snow" or something, but if you're going to re-tell a fairy-tale, at least give your heroine a name that doesn't stick out like a sore thumb. I realize that this is a complaint about the movie screenplay, not the book adaption... but still. It felt awkward to have all these names like William, Eric, Gus, Anna, Lilly, and... Snow White.
3. The bad guys were soul-less, and the good guys were perfect. Even bad characters have some redeeming value as to why you kind of wish they didn't have to die, but they're bad so you have to kill them. The bad guys in this story were just so bad, there was no way you could not hate them. The good guys were flawless: children obeyed their parents, men saved their women, women sacrificed for their families, and Snow White was a sweet innocent little angel. I'm sorry, but even good guys have a bad side. And if you're perfect, I couldn't care less what happens to you, because I can't relate to you.
So that is, essentially, why I stopped listening to the audiobook halfway through.
graveyardgremlin (7194 KP) rated The Sleeping Beauty (Five Hundred Kingdoms, #5) in Books
Feb 15, 2019
The title implies that the story told within the pages is about Sleeping Beauty, it's not. While that fairy tale plays a small part, it's not really what the book is about. Featuring many fairy tales and mythical references, a tournament with diverse quests, and of course, magic, THE SLEEPING BEAUTY's main characters are Lily, the Godmother of the kingdom of Eltaria, Rosamund, the princess, and Siegfried, the Norse-like warrior "prince". Of all the characters, Siegfried is the one I got to know the best, who I liked the most, and was fully fleshed out, while Rosamund was flat with no personality; I honestly didn't care what happened to her. Lily was a promising character at the beginning, then she was almost abandoned, her personality lost, and thrown in here and there until the end, which is a shame.
The story was okay, it had its ups and downs. Sometimes it dragged, other times it kept at a brisk pace. Often the humor fell flat but there were a few smile-worthy moments. The "evil" was never fully explained and I never understood why the bad guy did what he did. As for the final confrontation, there didn't seem much to be overcome and it was over in almost an instant. I would have hoped for more of a bang instead of a whimper. The ending itself was pretty much how many people would expect a fairy tale to end, but it was too hurried and too confusing for me. The book is an enjoyable, light afternoon read, but one I'm likely to forget about. Not my favorite of the series by far.
The story was okay, it had its ups and downs. Sometimes it dragged, other times it kept at a brisk pace. Often the humor fell flat but there were a few smile-worthy moments. The "evil" was never fully explained and I never understood why the bad guy did what he did. As for the final confrontation, there didn't seem much to be overcome and it was over in almost an instant. I would have hoped for more of a bang instead of a whimper. The ending itself was pretty much how many people would expect a fairy tale to end, but it was too hurried and too confusing for me. The book is an enjoyable, light afternoon read, but one I'm likely to forget about. Not my favorite of the series by far.
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