Another month ends, so the main Brightdreamer Books site has once again been updated.
Enjoy!
Thursday, November 30, 2023
The Lost and the Found (Cat Clarke)
The Lost and the Found
Cat Clarke
Crown Books
Fiction, YA Thriller
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Faith Long was just four years old when Laurel, her adopted older sister, was taken from their front yard in broad daylight. Since then, everything about her life has been warped around that absence. Her mother threw herself into the investigation, ensuring that the police and public didn't forget Laurel's face so long as she was missing. Her father, equally devastated, eventually had to leave, moving in with a boyfriend who becomes like a second father to Faith. As for Faith herself, she knows she'll never be anything but Laurel's sister, the pale imitation, the consolation prize who will never live up to the memory of the missing girl.
Thirteen years later, a miracle happens: a young woman turns up at the family's old house, clutching a battered teddy bear just like the one Lauren disappeared with... a young woman who claims to be Laurel Long.
She's reticent to discuss what happened, or where she's been, or how she managed to escape after so long. She's clearly been traumatized, and nobody (except maybe their mother) expects her to be the same sweet little girl she was when she vanished. But even Faith is surprised to find how many mixed emotions are dredged up when she lays eyes on the nineteen-year-old Laurel for the first time, and how much more chaotic her already-unstable life becomes... and that's before she begins to wonder about some of Laurel's behaviors and newly-acquired quirks. As much as the girl's disappearance threw the family into disarray, her return may destroy what little they salvaged.
REVIEW: The disappearance of a child has to be one of the greatest traumas a family can experience, especially when they are never found. Those left behind are left with questions that fester like open wounds, not helped by a media and society always hungry for salacious details and wild speculation. The Lost and the Found shows how even what should be a moment of closure and happiness can instead lead to more trauma, especially when new questions are raised.
Faith Long is a shy seventeen-year-old who only recently managed to make a few friends and even find a boyfriend; her entire life, she's learned to doubt that anyone could be interested in her as a person and not simply as Laurel's sister. Her mother never stopped her campaign to find Laurel, even at the cost of her marriage (and more than one accusation that she was milking the disappearance for the money and attention, accusations that may oversimplify her motives but aren't entirely without merit), and sometimes doesn't even seem to see Faith. Her father, at least, is a steadying presence, no less involved or loving despite living elsewhere, though it's his French boyfriend Michel who becomes the real rock Faith can lean on in hard times. Faith is slowly, tentatively looking forward to college and adulthood and leaving the toxic family nest, becoming her own person at last... at least, until Laurel turns up again.
If Laurel the absent sister was an inescapable shadow over Faith's life, Laurel the returned is a veritable black hole, sucking everyone into her presence. She has been through indescribable Hell - the book never gets graphic but makes more than enough allusions and hints - and Faith knows she needs to be understanding and patient, but can't help feeling that her life has been upended yet again, and yet again nobody seems to notice how she's being trampled underfoot and forgotten... not helped by how their mother immediately latches onto the returned Laurel, elevating her to saintly status and even arranging fresh press conferences and media outings touting the "happy ending" to their long years of suffering. Faith struggles to relearn what it means to be a sister and to not lose what little life and independence she managed to attain from before, even as she tries to reconnect with someone who sometimes seems so familiar, and other times seems like a total stranger. Along the way are hints that there are important things Laurel isn't telling anyone, hints that could destroy the fragile new normal Faith and her family are trying to build.
A couple subplots felt like they didn't quite go anywhere by the end, a few hints that were never followed up. For the most part, this is a solid thriller about the struggles of a shattered family to come to grips with the unthinkable twice over (both the abduction and the return), and the struggle of one teen girl to reconcile the oddly ambivalent feelings and conflicting instincts raised by the "miracle" that was supposed to fix everything.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Like Never and Always (Ann Aguirre) - My Review
Down Among the Sticks and Bones (Seanan McGuire) - My Review
In An Instant (Suzanne Redfearn) - My Review
Cat Clarke
Crown Books
Fiction, YA Thriller
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Faith Long was just four years old when Laurel, her adopted older sister, was taken from their front yard in broad daylight. Since then, everything about her life has been warped around that absence. Her mother threw herself into the investigation, ensuring that the police and public didn't forget Laurel's face so long as she was missing. Her father, equally devastated, eventually had to leave, moving in with a boyfriend who becomes like a second father to Faith. As for Faith herself, she knows she'll never be anything but Laurel's sister, the pale imitation, the consolation prize who will never live up to the memory of the missing girl.
Thirteen years later, a miracle happens: a young woman turns up at the family's old house, clutching a battered teddy bear just like the one Lauren disappeared with... a young woman who claims to be Laurel Long.
She's reticent to discuss what happened, or where she's been, or how she managed to escape after so long. She's clearly been traumatized, and nobody (except maybe their mother) expects her to be the same sweet little girl she was when she vanished. But even Faith is surprised to find how many mixed emotions are dredged up when she lays eyes on the nineteen-year-old Laurel for the first time, and how much more chaotic her already-unstable life becomes... and that's before she begins to wonder about some of Laurel's behaviors and newly-acquired quirks. As much as the girl's disappearance threw the family into disarray, her return may destroy what little they salvaged.
REVIEW: The disappearance of a child has to be one of the greatest traumas a family can experience, especially when they are never found. Those left behind are left with questions that fester like open wounds, not helped by a media and society always hungry for salacious details and wild speculation. The Lost and the Found shows how even what should be a moment of closure and happiness can instead lead to more trauma, especially when new questions are raised.
Faith Long is a shy seventeen-year-old who only recently managed to make a few friends and even find a boyfriend; her entire life, she's learned to doubt that anyone could be interested in her as a person and not simply as Laurel's sister. Her mother never stopped her campaign to find Laurel, even at the cost of her marriage (and more than one accusation that she was milking the disappearance for the money and attention, accusations that may oversimplify her motives but aren't entirely without merit), and sometimes doesn't even seem to see Faith. Her father, at least, is a steadying presence, no less involved or loving despite living elsewhere, though it's his French boyfriend Michel who becomes the real rock Faith can lean on in hard times. Faith is slowly, tentatively looking forward to college and adulthood and leaving the toxic family nest, becoming her own person at last... at least, until Laurel turns up again.
If Laurel the absent sister was an inescapable shadow over Faith's life, Laurel the returned is a veritable black hole, sucking everyone into her presence. She has been through indescribable Hell - the book never gets graphic but makes more than enough allusions and hints - and Faith knows she needs to be understanding and patient, but can't help feeling that her life has been upended yet again, and yet again nobody seems to notice how she's being trampled underfoot and forgotten... not helped by how their mother immediately latches onto the returned Laurel, elevating her to saintly status and even arranging fresh press conferences and media outings touting the "happy ending" to their long years of suffering. Faith struggles to relearn what it means to be a sister and to not lose what little life and independence she managed to attain from before, even as she tries to reconnect with someone who sometimes seems so familiar, and other times seems like a total stranger. Along the way are hints that there are important things Laurel isn't telling anyone, hints that could destroy the fragile new normal Faith and her family are trying to build.
A couple subplots felt like they didn't quite go anywhere by the end, a few hints that were never followed up. For the most part, this is a solid thriller about the struggles of a shattered family to come to grips with the unthinkable twice over (both the abduction and the return), and the struggle of one teen girl to reconcile the oddly ambivalent feelings and conflicting instincts raised by the "miracle" that was supposed to fix everything.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Like Never and Always (Ann Aguirre) - My Review
Down Among the Sticks and Bones (Seanan McGuire) - My Review
In An Instant (Suzanne Redfearn) - My Review
Wednesday, November 29, 2023
My Sister, the Serial Killer (Oyinkan Braithwaite)
My Sister, The Serial Killer: A Novel
Oyinkan Braithewaite
Anchor
Fiction, Humor/Thriller
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: From childhood, Korede and her sister Ayoola have been opposites. Korede is tall, homely, disciplined, and obsessed with order and cleanliness, while Ayoola is the messy, flighty, petite beauty of the family, the one their mother coddles and has the highest of hopes for (insofar as landing a wealthy and influential husband). But Ayoola does have a few little quirks that have kept her single, that her mother doesn't know about... such as her habit of stabbing boyfriends to death. Three to date, as Korede knows too well. After all, she'd hardly be a supportive sister if she didn't help Ayoola clean up her little messes (and keep their mother in the dark). It's a tedious, lonely life, but family must come first, always and forever.
Until Ayoola turns up at Korede's job and steals the heart of the doctor Korede has secretly pined for for years.
Now Korede is torn. She can't warn him without exposing Ayoola's secret - and her own. She can't just stand by and let him sleepwalk into a knife, either. Has Ayoola finally crossed an uncrossable line, or are the bonds of sisterhood still thicker than yet another boyfriend's blood?
REVIEW: With a certain deadpan humor and some wrenching emotion, My Sister, the Serial Killer explores the fallout of family abuse, the consequences of generations of cultural denigration of women to mere object status (even in their own eyes), the unfair weight society puts on physical appearance as predictor of personal virtue, and the complicated and contradictory bonds of sibling rivalry and sibling loyalty.
From the start, where Korede is helping clean up yet another crime scene with jaded exasperation, the twisted nature of the girls' relationship is front and center in the tale, which focuses on Korede as she wrestles with the monstrous, bloody-tusked elephant in the middle of their Nigerian home. As the story unfolds, flashbacks to previous boyfriends/"incidents" and their abusive, shady father show the roots of the dysfunctional mess. It's not just that Ayoola is basically a psychopath, who has to be reminded to show some appearance of empathy when her boyfriend goes "missing", nor is it just that Korede has been pressured all her life to enable her more beautiful (and therefore more desirable and liked) sister; it's that becoming a killer and a killer's accomplice was almost a sane and rational response to extremely oppressive and abusive situations, compared to how other women in the story end up handling their own stomped-down lives and the men who too often do the stomping (as much out of active malice as out of casual ignorance). Korede's few attempts to speak out are usually met with derision and disbelief, with listeners suspecting her of jealousy over her prettier sister's success with boys and social media. The one man Korede does have feelings for, and has spent years earning the respect of in the workplace, is a goner the moment he lays eyes on Ayoola. Meanwhile, the girls' mother obliviously criticizes Korede for not being more supportive of Ayoola, and the family of Ayoola's last boyfriend start pushing the police (who are generally more interested in coercing bribe money from the populace than actually investigating crimes) for answers... all of which tests just how far Korede is willing to go for the sake of a sister who inherently cannot feel gratitude for the effort, or the willfully ignorant mother who will never see her as anything other than an ugly failure.
I thought the ending felt a bit flat after the buildup, and sometimes it leaned a little hard into the horrific way women are treated by men (and by each other), which managed to shave a half-star off the rating. Other than that, though, it's quite memorable, if also quite dark.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Echo Wife (Sarah Gailey) - My Review
Comfort Me With Apples (Catherynne M. Valente) - My Review
Oyinkan Braithewaite
Anchor
Fiction, Humor/Thriller
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: From childhood, Korede and her sister Ayoola have been opposites. Korede is tall, homely, disciplined, and obsessed with order and cleanliness, while Ayoola is the messy, flighty, petite beauty of the family, the one their mother coddles and has the highest of hopes for (insofar as landing a wealthy and influential husband). But Ayoola does have a few little quirks that have kept her single, that her mother doesn't know about... such as her habit of stabbing boyfriends to death. Three to date, as Korede knows too well. After all, she'd hardly be a supportive sister if she didn't help Ayoola clean up her little messes (and keep their mother in the dark). It's a tedious, lonely life, but family must come first, always and forever.
Until Ayoola turns up at Korede's job and steals the heart of the doctor Korede has secretly pined for for years.
Now Korede is torn. She can't warn him without exposing Ayoola's secret - and her own. She can't just stand by and let him sleepwalk into a knife, either. Has Ayoola finally crossed an uncrossable line, or are the bonds of sisterhood still thicker than yet another boyfriend's blood?
REVIEW: With a certain deadpan humor and some wrenching emotion, My Sister, the Serial Killer explores the fallout of family abuse, the consequences of generations of cultural denigration of women to mere object status (even in their own eyes), the unfair weight society puts on physical appearance as predictor of personal virtue, and the complicated and contradictory bonds of sibling rivalry and sibling loyalty.
From the start, where Korede is helping clean up yet another crime scene with jaded exasperation, the twisted nature of the girls' relationship is front and center in the tale, which focuses on Korede as she wrestles with the monstrous, bloody-tusked elephant in the middle of their Nigerian home. As the story unfolds, flashbacks to previous boyfriends/"incidents" and their abusive, shady father show the roots of the dysfunctional mess. It's not just that Ayoola is basically a psychopath, who has to be reminded to show some appearance of empathy when her boyfriend goes "missing", nor is it just that Korede has been pressured all her life to enable her more beautiful (and therefore more desirable and liked) sister; it's that becoming a killer and a killer's accomplice was almost a sane and rational response to extremely oppressive and abusive situations, compared to how other women in the story end up handling their own stomped-down lives and the men who too often do the stomping (as much out of active malice as out of casual ignorance). Korede's few attempts to speak out are usually met with derision and disbelief, with listeners suspecting her of jealousy over her prettier sister's success with boys and social media. The one man Korede does have feelings for, and has spent years earning the respect of in the workplace, is a goner the moment he lays eyes on Ayoola. Meanwhile, the girls' mother obliviously criticizes Korede for not being more supportive of Ayoola, and the family of Ayoola's last boyfriend start pushing the police (who are generally more interested in coercing bribe money from the populace than actually investigating crimes) for answers... all of which tests just how far Korede is willing to go for the sake of a sister who inherently cannot feel gratitude for the effort, or the willfully ignorant mother who will never see her as anything other than an ugly failure.
I thought the ending felt a bit flat after the buildup, and sometimes it leaned a little hard into the horrific way women are treated by men (and by each other), which managed to shave a half-star off the rating. Other than that, though, it's quite memorable, if also quite dark.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Echo Wife (Sarah Gailey) - My Review
Comfort Me With Apples (Catherynne M. Valente) - My Review
Lifeboat 12 (Susan Hood)
Lifeboat 12
Susan Hood
Simon and Schuster
Fiction, MG Action/Chiller/Historical Fiction/Poetry
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: When war comes to London, it brings rations, air raid sirens, gas masks, and bombs falling from the skies... all of which could hardly make thirteen-year-old Ken's life much worse, thanks to an overworked father, a stepmother who hardly seems to care for him, and a kid half-sister who steals all the love and attention in the household. Now he's been told that he is to be one of countless children to be shipped away from the city due to the threat of German attacks - all the way across the ocean to Canada. Dad tells him it'll be his own grand adventure, like the ones in the books he's always reading (that of course he can't take with him), but to Ken it feels more like his stepmom has finally found a way to get him out of the house once and for all. Still, once he's on his way, he begins to warm to the prospect, especially when the food aboard the transport ship - luxury liner SS City of Benares, out of India, pressed into national service - is miles above anything he's had in his impoverished, ration-restricted home in memory.
Then the German submarine finds the convoy, and everything goes wrong all at once.
Now Ken is in a cramped lifeboat with hardly any food, not enough water, and odds of rescue diminishing by the hour. What happened to the other passengers and crew of their ship? Where is the British Navy, who was supposed to be following the convoy? And how is anyone ever going to find one tiny, overloaded lifeboat in the middle of the vast Atlantic Ocean?
This story was inspired by true events in World War II.
REVIEW: Melding the horrors of war and ocean survival, the confusion of growing up in turbulent times, and the excitement of discovery and adventure as a young man is pushed into the wider world on his own for the first time (even if that excitement too often runs face-first into the unforgiving chasm of reality), Lifeboat 12 makes a pivotal moment in world history relatable to readers of all ages.
Ken starts out a mere boy, casually selfish in the way of many children, prone to mischief like stealing apples as he acts out anxieties about his home life: he still carries a certain guilt knowing that his mother died shortly after giving birth to him, and has never warmed up to his stepmother, nor she to him. When he finds that his parents are sending him halfway around the world, he sees it as ultimate proof that he's unwelcome in his own home... until the bombs begin to fall, and he realizes the danger they claim they're trying to protect him from is all too real. In the way of children, he adapts quickly to the new reality, becoming obsessed with airplanes and ships until he can identify them at a glance, and thus thinks himself more prepared for the journey to Canada than he really is - even when the trip itself proves at least as dangerous as staying in London, and that's before they even reach the docks and the ship. Along the way, he begins to make new friends and even step up to small leadership roles over younger children. Soon enough, he's forgotten all about the potential dangers of the war... but the war has not forgotten about him, as he learns the hard way in the dead of night. In the mad scramble to escape, he ends up in the wrong lifeboat, one of many crowded into too small of a space with inadequate emergency supplies (there isn't even simple fishing gear on board to supplement canned rations). The emergency levels playing fields almost across the board; boy or girl, passenger or crew, officer or civilian, adult or child, even white English or other (the crew of the luxury liner are Muslims and foreigners, most of them just service crew and not even working sailors), all are literally in the same survival boat. The desperation and tedium are at least as dangerous as exposure and dehydration, and Ken and others try desperately to keep themselves sane... not all of them succeeding.
The story is told in a sort of free verse, with short chapters that have little fat in them, adding an almost surreal overtone. The ending felt a trifle abrupt, and I almost wanted an afterword outlining the original true story and what was kept or changed about Hood's take on events, but other than that it's a solid tale.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Wreck of the Whale Ship Essex (Owen Chase et al.) - My Review
Adrift (Paul Griffin) - My Review
The Cay (Theodore Taylor) - My Review
Susan Hood
Simon and Schuster
Fiction, MG Action/Chiller/Historical Fiction/Poetry
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: When war comes to London, it brings rations, air raid sirens, gas masks, and bombs falling from the skies... all of which could hardly make thirteen-year-old Ken's life much worse, thanks to an overworked father, a stepmother who hardly seems to care for him, and a kid half-sister who steals all the love and attention in the household. Now he's been told that he is to be one of countless children to be shipped away from the city due to the threat of German attacks - all the way across the ocean to Canada. Dad tells him it'll be his own grand adventure, like the ones in the books he's always reading (that of course he can't take with him), but to Ken it feels more like his stepmom has finally found a way to get him out of the house once and for all. Still, once he's on his way, he begins to warm to the prospect, especially when the food aboard the transport ship - luxury liner SS City of Benares, out of India, pressed into national service - is miles above anything he's had in his impoverished, ration-restricted home in memory.
Then the German submarine finds the convoy, and everything goes wrong all at once.
Now Ken is in a cramped lifeboat with hardly any food, not enough water, and odds of rescue diminishing by the hour. What happened to the other passengers and crew of their ship? Where is the British Navy, who was supposed to be following the convoy? And how is anyone ever going to find one tiny, overloaded lifeboat in the middle of the vast Atlantic Ocean?
This story was inspired by true events in World War II.
REVIEW: Melding the horrors of war and ocean survival, the confusion of growing up in turbulent times, and the excitement of discovery and adventure as a young man is pushed into the wider world on his own for the first time (even if that excitement too often runs face-first into the unforgiving chasm of reality), Lifeboat 12 makes a pivotal moment in world history relatable to readers of all ages.
Ken starts out a mere boy, casually selfish in the way of many children, prone to mischief like stealing apples as he acts out anxieties about his home life: he still carries a certain guilt knowing that his mother died shortly after giving birth to him, and has never warmed up to his stepmother, nor she to him. When he finds that his parents are sending him halfway around the world, he sees it as ultimate proof that he's unwelcome in his own home... until the bombs begin to fall, and he realizes the danger they claim they're trying to protect him from is all too real. In the way of children, he adapts quickly to the new reality, becoming obsessed with airplanes and ships until he can identify them at a glance, and thus thinks himself more prepared for the journey to Canada than he really is - even when the trip itself proves at least as dangerous as staying in London, and that's before they even reach the docks and the ship. Along the way, he begins to make new friends and even step up to small leadership roles over younger children. Soon enough, he's forgotten all about the potential dangers of the war... but the war has not forgotten about him, as he learns the hard way in the dead of night. In the mad scramble to escape, he ends up in the wrong lifeboat, one of many crowded into too small of a space with inadequate emergency supplies (there isn't even simple fishing gear on board to supplement canned rations). The emergency levels playing fields almost across the board; boy or girl, passenger or crew, officer or civilian, adult or child, even white English or other (the crew of the luxury liner are Muslims and foreigners, most of them just service crew and not even working sailors), all are literally in the same survival boat. The desperation and tedium are at least as dangerous as exposure and dehydration, and Ken and others try desperately to keep themselves sane... not all of them succeeding.
The story is told in a sort of free verse, with short chapters that have little fat in them, adding an almost surreal overtone. The ending felt a trifle abrupt, and I almost wanted an afterword outlining the original true story and what was kept or changed about Hood's take on events, but other than that it's a solid tale.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Wreck of the Whale Ship Essex (Owen Chase et al.) - My Review
Adrift (Paul Griffin) - My Review
The Cay (Theodore Taylor) - My Review
Friday, November 24, 2023
Thornhedge (T. Kingfisher)
Thornhedge
T. Kingfisher
Tor
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess trapped in a cursed sleep, high in a tower hidden by an impenetrable tangle of vines and thorns... but were the brambles there to keep brave knightly rescuers out, or something else in?
Toadling - once a human child until snatched by fairies, raised in their world, and returned irrevocably changed by her experiences - lives in the hedge, protecting the secret within as she was bound to do many mortal lifetimes ago. As time passes, it seems that people have finally forgotten all about the tower, to her relief... until a curious knight turns up, determined to unravel the mystery of the hedge, the tower, the princess, the curse - and Toadling herself.
REVIEW: Thornhedge puts an interesting spin on the Sleeping Beauty story, weaving in elements of fae lore and changelings. It starts out a little slow, playing it cagey about what's going on and why a young woman with fairy powers - raised by marsh-dwellers known as greenteeth in the fairy realm, she learned small magics over water, as well as how to talk to animals and turn into a toad - is hiding out in Sleeping Beauty's hedge. Watching as time passes and a road is built past the hidden tower, Toadling reveals mixed feelings about humans, fearing them and longing for their company at the same time, while ultimately burdened by the task/curse that shackles her to the forgotten tower on the forgotten hill. Time meanders past, centuries drifting by, before the knight shows up and kicks off the story proper. As she tries to discourage him from his explorations of the hedge, her backstory is revealed, as well as what really happened in the lost kingdom of the tower, from the fateful christening to the day the thorns grew - not at all the story one knows from popular fairy tales. After the initial meandering, the tale picks up very nicely, developing into a dark retelling that highlights the casual cruelty of both fate and the fairies, how beauty and virtue are not always bedfellows, how misplaced love and loyalty can do great damage, and how family can be found in the most unexpected places and people. It all wraps up with a strong finish, though that earlier dithering just barely held it down to four stars.
You Might Also Enjoy:
A Spindle Splintered (Alix E. Harrow) - My Review
Spindle's End (Robin McKinley) - My Review
Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower (Tamsyn Muir) - My Review
T. Kingfisher
Tor
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess trapped in a cursed sleep, high in a tower hidden by an impenetrable tangle of vines and thorns... but were the brambles there to keep brave knightly rescuers out, or something else in?
Toadling - once a human child until snatched by fairies, raised in their world, and returned irrevocably changed by her experiences - lives in the hedge, protecting the secret within as she was bound to do many mortal lifetimes ago. As time passes, it seems that people have finally forgotten all about the tower, to her relief... until a curious knight turns up, determined to unravel the mystery of the hedge, the tower, the princess, the curse - and Toadling herself.
REVIEW: Thornhedge puts an interesting spin on the Sleeping Beauty story, weaving in elements of fae lore and changelings. It starts out a little slow, playing it cagey about what's going on and why a young woman with fairy powers - raised by marsh-dwellers known as greenteeth in the fairy realm, she learned small magics over water, as well as how to talk to animals and turn into a toad - is hiding out in Sleeping Beauty's hedge. Watching as time passes and a road is built past the hidden tower, Toadling reveals mixed feelings about humans, fearing them and longing for their company at the same time, while ultimately burdened by the task/curse that shackles her to the forgotten tower on the forgotten hill. Time meanders past, centuries drifting by, before the knight shows up and kicks off the story proper. As she tries to discourage him from his explorations of the hedge, her backstory is revealed, as well as what really happened in the lost kingdom of the tower, from the fateful christening to the day the thorns grew - not at all the story one knows from popular fairy tales. After the initial meandering, the tale picks up very nicely, developing into a dark retelling that highlights the casual cruelty of both fate and the fairies, how beauty and virtue are not always bedfellows, how misplaced love and loyalty can do great damage, and how family can be found in the most unexpected places and people. It all wraps up with a strong finish, though that earlier dithering just barely held it down to four stars.
You Might Also Enjoy:
A Spindle Splintered (Alix E. Harrow) - My Review
Spindle's End (Robin McKinley) - My Review
Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower (Tamsyn Muir) - My Review
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