YA Review: The Shadow Queen by CJ Redwine

I was lucky enough to get this book through the booksfortrade deal with another blogger, although I also originally downloaded it as an e-galley from Edelweiss thanks to Balzer and Bray.  It's one I was really excited for.  I finally got around to reading it a little late though, I got behind on some review books. But when I finally picked it up I really did end up enjoying it.  It's the first book I've read by this author, and I'm also excited that there will be a sequel.  I do enjoy fairy tale retellings and I liked this one that was inspired by Snow White. 

There are two main characters in this.  First is Lorelai, who should really be the princess, but she had to run away to escape her stepmother, the queen, before she was killed.  Along with her brother Leo, and Gabril, the head of the palace guard before her father was killed by her stepmother Irina, she has been on the run.  Trying to stay safe, but also to come up with a way to get back and take her kingdom back, Lorelai is trying to learn how to use magic in a way she can defeat Irina, and along the way she is trying to help out her subjects, hoping to get them on her side when she needs them.

The other main character is Kol, or you could go by his full name, Kolvanismir Arsenyevnek, I think I'll stick with Kol.  He is a prince in the kingdom of Eldr.  His lands are being overrun by ogres.  When we meet him, Kol has just been kicked out of school for a prank.  He's at home partying with his friends, waiting for his father, mother and older brother to return from the battle front where their army is fighting the ogres.  Now there is something unusual about Kol, you see his people are dragons.  At some times they're human, other times they're dragons.  Their bodies change back and forth.  They have two hearts, one for the dragon and one for the human part of them.  Kol gets bad news, and he must now take over as the king of his land.  He can't seem to think of a way to get rid of the ogres without magic, and so he feels he must go and try to make a deal with Irina, her magic for food that his land can provide for her people.

Kol and his two best friends head into Lorelai's land.  They get into one small village, and their nice clothing sets the villagers after them, being poor, they can only see what they might be able to get from these strangers.  Lorelai and her brother and friend just happen to be in the same village, and they end up saving Kol and his friends from the angry villagers.

When Kol gets to Irina, he finds that instead of wanting his food, alls he wants is him to find Lorelai and bring her heart back.  Now Kol never got Lorelai's name, so it isn't until they attack and cause a major tragedy for Lorelai, that he soon learns who she is, and that he cannot kill her.

But Irina has built in wards for just this type of betrayal situation.  And it will be those things that will cause Lorelai and Kol to fight both for their own lives, as well as each other.

There was a very interesting take on the fairy tale in this story.  The dragon parts actually made me think a bit about the Sleeping Beauty Disney movie.  But other than that, Kol became the perfect huntsman for the Snow White story.  Irina was a perfect wicked stepmother/evil queen.  Lorelai was a Snow White more like Snow in the tv show Once Upon a Time, than like the one in the Disney story, because she was pretty kick-ass.  There are some very sad parts, a bit of a love story, but not too much over the story, I like how the author wove the romance through the story. 

Review: Tear You Apart (Beau Rivage Series) by Sarah Cross (COYER Challenge #8)

First thanks to Netgalley and Egmont USA for allowing me to read an egalley of this.  And before I go on, I want to mention some upsetting news that I heard this week from another author, supposedly Egmont USA is going to be shut down.  This makes me very sad as they seem to publish so many books that I enjoy.  I hope that all the authors that will be losing out because of this get picked up by other publishing companies as soon as possible.  This author, Sarah Cross, is an author that I know I will be sad if there are no more books in the Beau Rivage series.  I loved the first book in the series, Kill Me Softly, which was kind of a retelling of a fairy tale I wasn't familiar with. But I was really intrigued by it, and even better it had all the more familiar fairy tales included. This second book, which is a sequel, but not really, tells the story of a Snow White fairy tale.  But a little different than normal.  We do get to see Blue and Mira from the first book, but they are pretty minor characters. 

Vivian is the girl with the Snow White curse.  Her on again, off again boyfriend/childhood friend Henley has the curse of the Huntsman in the Snow White story.  He is supposed to cut her heart out for her stepmother.  In this book Vivian gets a message from the boy who has the Prince Charming curse for her story.  She's never met him, but finds out that he lives in the Underworld.  When she meets him he seems like a really good guy, and he wants her to come live with him, where she will be protected from her stepmother and the huntsman from her curse.  The thing is, Vivian really is in love with Henley, and he seems to be really in love with her.  He promises, swears, that he could never kill her, never hurt her. But sometimes, usually when she's done something to make him mad/jealous, his anger is very violent and destructive.  It scares everyone around, including Vivian, who thinks that once the curse takes over him, he will not be able to keep himself from taking her heart.  So she goes and visits her Prince in the Underworld, but it seems everything there is not as wonderful as it seems.  The Prince, Jasper, has a father with some kind of curse that seems to scare everyone who works for him, as well as his own children.  Every night the Twelve Dancing princesses come down to dance with their princes, Jasper's brothers.  And Jasper has a sister, who has suffered at the hands of their father, so much that it has kept her from fulfilling her part of her curse.  When Vivian's stepmother Regina hires an old retired huntsman to get the job done, things take a turn for the worse.  Vivian escapes to the Underworld, not knowing if Henley has died from trying to save her, and soon she is trapped down there by the troll that is Jasper's father, and she must figure a way to get back and see if Henley is still alive.  The more she is around Jasper, the more she knows that she truly loved Henley, and she will do anything, give up her own life even, to be with him, and change the fate of her curse.

Again this is so reminiscent of the tv show Once Upon a Time, even down to the stepmother's name this time, Regina.  I love the way the fairy tales have been changed, and how they all turn out different even if they are the same curse, just because everyone is really different.  I loved the story, and was so glad to hear about some novellas that are available so that I can get back into this fairy tale world that Cross has so wonderfully created.

Review: Kill Me Softly by Sarah Cross

I honestly am mad at myself for letting this sit on my small TBR shelf in my living room under my tv for as long as it has.  I won it in a giveaway a while back, it was a book I was really interested in.  I only picked it up in a hurry because I saw an e-galley of a sequel/companion novel Tear You Apart.  So I figured I should hurry and read Kill Me Softly so that I could read the 2nd one as part of my September is for Sequels Challenge.  And I picked this up and it was a huge attention grabber!  I am a fan of the tv show Once Upon a Time and this book reminded me of it so much!  Not in a copycat way, but a good way.  It was so hard to put down, and I wanted so bad last night to finish it, but even with only like 10 pages left I was falling asleep, so tired from the last two busy nights, so I had to wait to finish until breakfast this morning. 

As you may have guessed from my description, it is basically a fairy tale retelling.  And not just one, a lot of different fairy tales.  And while it talks a little about the Disney versions, this is really a tale about the original Grimm fairy tales.  In the Grimm version of Cinderella, the two wicked stepsisters don't just try on the slipper and it doesn't fit, one cuts her big toe off in order to fit in the shoe, and the other cuts her heel off!  Much more gruesome than what Disney shows. 

The main character in this book is Mirabelle.  Her parents died when she was really young, and her two godmothers took her away from Beau Rivage, their hometown, to keep her safe.  Or to keep her from being sad supposedly.  She has no idea what kind of town this is, or that fairy tales might possibly be true.  Before her sixteenth birthday she decides that she needs to finally visit her parents' graves to be closer to them. So she sets up an elaborate plan about an online boyfriend that she is going to run away to meet.  This is to leave misleading clues for her godmothers to go on a wild goose chase trying to find her, hopefully giving her time to get to Beau Rivage and find what she needs there.  Well, once she gets there, she finds things are a little strange.  First she meets two brothers, Felix and Blue.  They are as different from each other as could be.  Felix is very straight-laced, even runs the fancy hotel and casino Mira ends up trying to hide out in for the night, Dream Casino.  But first she meets Blue.  And as his name sounds, he's a little different.  He's got all kinds of piercings and his clothes are all ripped up and written all over.  And the kicker, his spiky hair, and even his eyebrows, are blue, a bright candy colored blue.  Now Blue isn't such a nice guy it seems at first.  He's kind of rude, obnoxious, sarcastic.  And his main goal seems to be to make Mira go away, get out of town. He definitely doesn't want her to meet his brother.  Once she does meet him though, she is charmed by Felix, who is quite the romantic. 

The longer she is there, the more Mira sees strange things, and begins to learn even stranger things about herself.  The fist-sized, wheel-shaped mark on her back that she'd always thought was a birthmark, and been ashamed of, her new friends had them too. Blue, and Freddie, all of them.  While Blue's was more of a heart looking shape, Freddie's looks exactly like Mira's.  And soon she learns about curses, and fairy tales, and how Disney got things wrong.  She also learns that her parents may not have died in a fire as she's been told all her life.  And that she may have her own curse to deal with.  Falling in love with Felix, while he is charming and romantic, may not be the most healthy thing for her.  And what is it about Blue?  Will Mira have to be a part of the curse that is shown on her back?  Or can she beat it and go with what she wants?

This story is so much about choosing to make your life the way you want it, even with fate.  I love the fairy tales somewhat re-imagined.  And I love the love-hate relationship between Blue and Mira.  I am now going to be such a promoter of this book.  I will be donating my copy to the high school library where I work as well!  Not until after I loan it to my sister and another friend first though.  If you haven't read this yet, you need to get it on your TBR list. 

While you're here, there's only 1 day left to enter my awesome 5th Blogoversary giveaway by clicking on the button below!

Or you can still sign up to take part in my September is for Sequels Challenge on the button below. There will be prizes possible for participants as well!