Review: Legacy of Roses

Legacy of Roses by Melanie Cellier is the first in her newest series of fairy tales called Kingdoms of Legacy, which takes place in a world where people are forced to live out the fairy tales of the past. After completing her extensive Four Kingdoms books, which ran for many years and expanded through many series, it would not have been possible to keep doing fairy tale retellings without trying something new. This is her second "Beauty and the Beast" retelling, and I have to admit that I preferred the first one, which was a more literal adaptation of the fairy tale. Following up A Tale of Beauty and the Beast with Legacy of Roses reminds me of Robin McKinley's Rose Daughter, her attempt to retell "Beauty and the Beast" in a new way that failed to gain the same appeal as her first adaptation, Beauty.

Legacy of Roses begins when a stranger named Dimitri moves to a small village to take residence in his family's manor, which happens to be a castle that is cursed by the mysterious Legacy powers. Shortly after arriving, he is spotted by Rosalie, who is obsessed with the Legacy curse. She warns him to avoid the manor for fear of activating the curse, but he refuses due to his desire to learn more about his family's history. Still, he is taken by Rosalie and her friend, Daphne, and decides to learn more about the curse and its connection to all of them. When he finds out that Rosalie is being pursued by her greedy ex, Jace, Dimitri's priority shifts to keeping her safe at all costs.

The characters and writing in this book are strong, as expected from such a seasoned author. The love story is great. It was clear that Rosalie was instantly attracted to Dimitri, but tried to fight it due to her past experiences with Jace and her desire to avoid the curse. Dimitri is a likable character who is instantly drawn to Rosalie and willing to do whatever it takes to protect her, no matter how silly it makes him look or how much extra hair he grows as a result. I also loved Daphne, who took on more of a "fairy godmother" role and attempted to manipulate the legacy in Rosalie and Dimitri's favor as much as possible. Her chronic sleeping made me suspect she might come back in another fairy tale adaptation in this series about a certain tired princess. The addition of Rosalie's brothers was fun and added something from the original fairy tale that isn't included in most retellings.

My only issue with this book was the concept itself. I had a difficult time believing that unseen powers forced everyone to relive classic fairy tales over and over again. The idea of the Legacy curse creates the troubled notion that no one has free will, which was Rosalie's main struggle throughout the book. Granted, this concept is almost identical to Ever After High, but that made up for it by not taking itself too seriously. In the first Ever After High book and webisode, Raven Queen exerted her free will by refusing to sign the Book of Legacy. Instead of finding a way to fight the Legacy in this book, there are some awkward moments in which the characters try to encourage it by reading "lines" from the original fairy tale with hammy acting, which felt a bit off-putting in a story that tried to take itself so seriously.

Overall, I think the Kingdoms of Legacy series would be perfect for someone looking for a more serious version of Ever After High. It succeeds in not being a direct copy of the Four Kingdoms books, in which Melanie Cellier covered most of these fairy tales more directly. However, the slow pacing and obsession over an unseen power that controlled people's fates made it difficult to swallow, causing certain parts of the book to feel more forced than they should have. I hope that the later books in this series do more to explore the logistics of the Legacy curse and come up with a more palatable explanation for it than the universe trying to recreate famous fairy tales.