The Princess Blog

In honor of National Tell a Fairy Tale Day  last weekend, all of the books from the Villain's Ever After series went on sale, so I decided to add one more to my collection. The Sultan and the Storyteller  by Lichelle Slater  caught my eye because instead of doing the obvious choice of reimaging "Aladdin," it is an adaptation of One Thousand and One Nights , a myth that rarely gets much attention. Lichelle Slater's previous books  were just okay for me, so I wasn't too sure what to expect from this one. Still, I was eager to read something new. I found it adequate, but not as enjoyable as some of the other books in this series , considering that they are all written by different authors. In this rare adaptation of One Thousand One Nights , the role of Shahrazad is taken by a young lady named Shahira, who has the unique ability to prophesize the future by speaking it out loud in the form of a story. Such a powerful ability could allow her to change the world in a ...

Since I was feeling a little down this week, I decided to check out the final book in the Villain's Ever After series, Carabosse and the Spindle Spell . This book stood out to me because it sounded like such a drastic twist from the other books in the series. It's a high fantasy retelling of "Sleeping Beauty"  from the villain's perspective, but it's nothing like  Maleficent . The book turns the cold-hearted fairy into a bubbly and somewhat geeky princess whose kingdom gets caught up in a power struggle. It has shapeshifting dragons like the Love's Enchanted Tales series  and reads more like a high fantasy novella than a fairy tale retelling, which appears to be the common them among  author Sylvia Mercedes ' roster of books. No longer a scorned fairy who places a curse on a newborn princess at her Christening, Carabosse is now the princess of a magical kingdom that is protected by twelve dragon lords. Meanwhile, Aurora is the ruthless daughter of a ...

It's no secret that "The Little Mermaid" is my favorite fairy tale. One of my favorite adaptations of it is Princess of Mermaids  by AG Marshall . In  The Prince and the Sea Witch , she brings us an entirely different imagining of the story in a much darker world where mermaids follow the classical siren mythology of luring men to their deaths. This is one of the latest entries in the Villain's Ever After series that I had been looking forward to the most. Considering the length of many of AG Marshall's recent novels , I was pleasantly surprised that this one was quite short, allowing me to read it on my own time without feeling pressured to finish. It doesn't convey the same themes of risks and sacrifice that I love about the original "Little Mermaid" story, but it is a pleasant book in its own right that follows the narrative structure of the other Villain's Ever After books, giving readers a good idea of what to expect. You've heard of ...

The Sorcerer and the Swan Princess  is the third book that I have read in the Villain's Ever After series . I've been skipping around because the series contains too many books to keep up with on a regular basis. This one stood out to me after enjoying several of Lucy Tempest 's recent fairy tale books and because the story of "Swan Lake" has always fascinated me due to its many possible interpretations . While this book follows the same basic structure as the others I've read  in which the prince or princess falls in love with the villain instead of their traditional love interest, it also had a few clever twists that made it stand out. It takes place in the same fairy tale world as Lucy Tempest's other books , so it can be interpreted as the latest installment in the Fairy Tales of Folkshore series just as easily as the Villain's Ever After series. Princess Ava's sister, Lina, has always been jealous of her claim to the throne, but Ava never re...

The Dark King and the Eternal Dance  is the second book I've read in  A Villain's Ever After , though it is not the second book in the series. I received an ARC copy from Camille Peters , who wrote the other book I read from this series, The Beast and the Enchantress . Camille supposedly encouraged Alesha Adamson to become an author and contribute to A Villain's Ever After, which is a very sweet thing to do for a friend. We could all use a good friend who encourages us to share our passions with the world as a true modern princess would. This book is based on "The Twelve Dancing Princesses," which is one of my favorite fairy tales, but one of my least favorite to read adaptations of . Most authors prefer to turn the tale into a horrific nightmare about siblings who are forced to go out each night and perform tasks against their will instead of an escapist fantasy about twelve sheltered princesses who sneak out to enjoy some freedom from the confines of their c...

The Beast and the Enchantress  by Camille Peters  is the first book in a new collaborative series of fairy tale retellings called A Villain's Ever After . Each week for the next three months, a new villain-inspired book will be released by a new author, many of whose fairy tale books I have reviewed in the past. The series follows the latest trend in which villains are treated like princesses or heroes  who made mistakes or were misunderstood. This trend first gained popularity ten years ago with Gregory Maguire's Wicked  in 2011 and its corresponding musical and has grown exponentially in  recent pop culture and animation . Though I may not have time to read every book in the Villain's Ever After series, I was fortunate to receive an ARC of The Beast and the Enchantress , which just came out this weekend. This is the second adaptation of "Beauty and the Beast"  I have read by Camille Peters. The story is quite different from Enchantment , so it didn't...