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: Mirrored by Alex Flinn

I was lucky enough to win an ARC of this earlier this year from Cynthia Leitich Smith, who is an author, and also blogs at Cynsations.  I didn't even realize it was autographed to me personally until I finally picked it up to read!  Here is the autograph:

I haven't read very many of Alex Flinn's books, but the ones I have, I've enjoyed for the most part. And of course, they almost always fit perfectly into my current love of fairy tale retellings, and this one was no exception.

The main character, well, there are two.  We start the story in the 80s (when I was growing up, so I loved that!) with a girl named Violet.  Violet is not a pretty girl, and she's also not a well liked girl, people think she's weird.  She's bullied, especially by a girl named Jennifer.  But there is a boy that she becomes friends with after a strange incident in the playground when they're kids.  A bird is dead, obviously killed by one of the boys who is a bully.  She sees another boy, named Greg, who seems really upset, so she goes over and picks up the bird, and all of a sudden it's okay.  Of course she plays it off as it wasn't dead, just stunned.  But from that point, she and Greg become good friends.  Until 8th grade.  They didn't get to spend the summer together, and when school starts, Greg comes back and he's grown, a lot. And now he seems very interested in being friends with Jennifer, and he won't hang out with Violet anymore.  When a strange woman comes and shows Violet that she really is a witch, and has powers, Violet thinks maybe, just maybe, she can change herself to make Greg like her. 

We join up again in the future with Greg and his wife Jennifer, and their daughter Celine.  Violet hasn't been in their life in a long time.  No matter how beautiful Violet became, or how talented, Greg was always in love with Jennifer.  But one day there is a tragedy, and Jennifer dies.  Violet comes into their life, and becomes Celine's stepmother, at first it seems like she's a good stepmother.  Soon Violet decides that Celine is always going to come between her and Greg, and Celine feels like she must always stay away from home.  Even to the point of hiding, basically leaving her home and living with a new friend she's made, Goose.  The strange woman who first was kind of a savior to Violet, now sees the way Violet is, and also tries to help Celine.

This is a wonderful retelling/reimagining of Snow White.  I loved all of it, especially the boy band part, and the character Goose and his family.  I really felt for Violet, and was rooting for her, until she just couldn't move on past wanting Greg.  She had everything, beauty, talent, smarts, and magic, but her whole life the only thing to make her happy would be if she had Greg.  And Celine was just a really sweet girl, you couldn't not like her, or even feel like Violet was ever right, even at times Celine felt sorry for Violet, when she knew what her life had been like.  Just a really great story, with really great characters.  I can't wait to purchase this book for my school library so that my students can read and enjoy it as well!

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.