This was an interesting take on the world of Grimm’s fairytales with emphasis on the idea of grim. A young woman wakes up in a castle with no knowledge of her past or even her own name. The only thing that seems familiar is a silver thimble in the pocket of her dress. She is given the name “seamstress” and made to work with a group of other women, most of them old and frail, stitching intricate beading and lace onto beautiful dresses. From the […]
I Have to Scale a Tower Naked? Where Do I Put My Sword?
The Mermaid’s Madness by Jim C. Hines (2009) – Okay, I broke a few of my self-imposed reading rules when I picked up this book, and I’m glad I did. I don’t usually select a book that’s in the middle of a series, and I tend to skip “reworked” fairy tales when I want to read fantasy. As usual, rules are meant to be broken, and I totally enjoyed this book loosely based on the original Little Mermaid. In this fantasy realm, Snow White, Sleeping […]
Cinderella’s from the Moon
The premise here is great, but the execution was a little disappointing. This book isn’t poorly written, but it does lack some character development and some plot elements are rushed. I’m not sure what attracted Kai to Cinder in the first place (other than she’s more normal than other girls he presumably knows), which is a major factor in the Cinderella story, especially here since they’d met a few times before the ball. I also didn’t realize that Cinder was still significantly still human. It […]
Probably not the best review to read if you’re on the fence about these books….
Cinder – 3.5 stars (13 reviews, 4.23 avg) I’m going to start off by saying that I’m probably not the demographic for this novel. This book has an excellent rating on Goodreads, and has gotten great reviews here on CBR. My wife loved the book, and enthusiastically encouraged me to read it. I thought it was okay. But I’m not really a fan of fairy tales, and have struggled in the past both with the romance genre and young adult fiction. So, while I wasn’t […]
Cinderella with naughty bits!
It’s becoming quite the habit that I start one of these books before bed and then stay up to ungodly hours finishing it, because I have no self control. But I just wasn’t tired! And I wanted to see what happened! (Okay, so I knew what was going to happen, that’s the whole point of reading romance novels, but you know what I mean.) An Offer From a Gentleman is the third of Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton books, and it’s basically a re-telling of Cinderella* (with […]
A Cinderella story
An Offer from a Gentleman is Julia Quinn’s Cinderella retelling and it is absolutely delightful. Of all the Bridgerton books, this one is my absolute favourite. Benedict is a wonderful hero, who literally comes to the rescue of victim of circumstance Sophie more than once, yet while she needs saving every so often, she is so strong and resilient and stands up for herself so admirably throughout the book. Full review on my blog.