The Princess Blog

Kenley Davidson  was the author of my favorite book  from the Entwined Tales series , so I jumped at the opportunity to read her book Goldheart  for free. Goldheart  is the second book from her series of fairy tale adaptations called The Andari Chronicles. It is a reimagining of  "Rumpelstiltskin."  While my favorite version of "Rumpelstiltskin" is still The Princess Pact  by Melanie Cellier , this one is a solid runner up. Kenley Davidson excels at writing stories about capable women with traditionally feminine flaws, which is becoming more of a rarity in modern times . Her characters' weaknesses make them easier to relate to than many of the modern movie princess heroines , who often excel at far too many skills for a well-rounded character. This level of realism also accounts for lack of magic and fantasy in her stories, which is the reason I didn't seek out her books as eagerly as most of the other authors from the Entwined Tales series. Elain...

A Beautiful Curse  was the last book I read in the Entwined Tales series, and it might just be my favorite. The sample I read from author  Kenley Davidson  at the launch party  was a novella called The Countess and the Frog . I liked the progressive characters as well as the humor, but it was lacking in magic and whimsy. A Beautiful Curse  contained all of that and more, which made Davidson's writing truly shine. It was based on the fairy tale "The Frog Bride" by the Brothers Grimm, which, though similar, is not exactly a reverse telling of "The Frog King."  Instead of teaching a message about responsibility, "The Frog Bride" is about embracing your differences. It tells the story of three princes who must pass a series of tests to inherit the throne from their father. The youngest prince, who is considered the good-for-nothing runt of the family, passes the tests by taking advice from a talking frog he meets in the woods that turns out to be a beaut...

Of all the samples I read from the six authors who attended the Entwined Tales Launch Party , I liked the works of Shari Tapscott the least. Therefore, it did not come as much of a surprise that A Bear's Bride  was my least favorite book in the Entwined Tales series. "East of the Sun and West of the Moon" , the story it was based on, is an obscure and somewhat odd Norwegian fairy tale about a girl who gets engaged to a polar bear who turns human at night, but she is never allowed to see him in human form. It has rather loose morals compared to the fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm in which characters usually get rewarded for doing good deeds and punished for doing bad. The heroine clearly defies the wishes of her betrothed but still defeats the witch who cursed him and gets her happy ending. The fairy tale was turned into a live-action movie in 1991 called The Polar Bear King , and it is one of the worst movies I have ever seen in my life. Everything from the acting to...

I finally finished reading the rest of the Entwined Tales series , starting with An Unnatural Beanstalk  by Brittany Fichter in anticipation of the sequel to her Autumn Fairy  book, The Autumn Fairy of Ages , coming out on Tuesday. I hope to have the rest of my reviews for Entwined Tales up by the end of next week. An Unnatural Beanstalk  didn't have the same light-hearted comedic tone as the others in the series, but that wasn't too surprising considering that both of the other books I read by Brittany were pretty dark. It followed the same structure about one of the woodcutter's daughters receiving an unwanted magical gift from her fairy godfather Mortimer and turning her entire life upside-down as a result. An Unnatural Beanstalk  is an adaptation of "Jack and the Beanstalk," but without the fantastical elements from the fairy tale. There are no man-eating giants, no golden eggs, and no beanstalks that tower into the sky. It's quite a shame becau...

It took a few months , but I finally got around to reading Melanie Cellier's contribution to the Entwined Tales series. It was from  Melanie Cellier 's Facebook page that I first learned about Entwined Tales , a series of six fairy tale adaptations by different authors about a family who was "blessed" with the magic of the worst fairy godfather ever, Mortimer. I had read all of Melanie's other books  as well as the first book in Entwined Tales,  A Goose Girl  by K.M. Shea , and A Little Mermaid  by Aya Ling , the fifth in the series. An Inconvenient Princess  by Melanie Cellier is the sixth and final book, so I've now read half the books while skipping over the middle three. The novels work just fine as stand-alone stories, so I didn't particularly feel like I was missing out on anything from the ones I haven't read. An Inconvenient Princess  is an adaptation of "Rapunzel," but in this version, the long-haired heroine is more of a comedic...

It's been a while since I attended the Entwined Tales Launch Party on Facebook , yet the only book I had read from it until now was A Little Mermaid  by Aya Ling . Instead, I spent the past few months catching up on the authors' other works. This week, I finally read the first book from the Entwined Tales series , which, if you're not familiar with it, is a series of six fairy tale adaptations written by six different authors about characters who must deal with the trials and tribulations of an oafish fairy godfather named Mortimer. The first book in the series is A Goose Girl  by K.M. Shea , based on the Grimm Brothers fairy tale "The Goose Girl."  I've become familiar with K.M. Shea's writing style as of late, and while I enjoyed some of her books more than others , I must say that this was a very fun read. I became reacquainted with the "Goose Girl" fairy tale recently after reading a version of it in Magic at Midnight  last week, so I was ea...

One week after the Entwined Tales Launch Party  that I attended on Facebook, the book I was waiting for finally became available to read! A Little Mermaid  by Aya Ling  is the fifth book in the Entwined Tales series , but I cheated and read it first because I was less interested in the fairy tales that were adapted in the previous books. If you've been following this blog for a while, you know that I have a very strong affinity to the story of "The Little Mermaid."   A Little Mermaid  is a very unique take on it. It has the same basic premise of the youngest mermaid princess giving up her voice for legs so that she can get closer to a human prince she rescued from drowning, but this time, Princess Clio is not in love with the prince she rescued. In fact, she deems him rather foolish for managing to fall off his own ship during his birthday celebration. Clio does, however, have a huge crush on a merman with a similar name to the human prince. Due to a misundersta...

I had a very interesting evening, celebrating the release of the Entwined Tales series on Facebook with the six lovely authors of the books from the series. I've never seen a release party quite like this before, but then, I've never seen a book series quite like this either. Each author has her own independent set of fairy tale novels, which brought them together based on their similar story content. They combined their talents to create an original series about a bumbling fairy godfather who goes around granting unwanted gifts to princesses from six different fairy tales. Some of the fairy tales they picked are rather obscure, such as "The Goose Girl" and "East of the Sun, West of the Moon,"  (which was turned into a live-action movie called The Polar Bear King  in 1991, but I wasn't a fan of it). Of course, the one I'm looking forward to the most is inspired by my favorite fairy tale , "The Little Mermaid."  Coming March 5th,  A Little...