Tales From The Kingdoms
Rating: 5/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher, Gollancz!
Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty - stories you love, and that we all think we know . . .
. . . but what about the secrets hidden within them? Why would a prince fall in love with a woman in a coffin? Why would a queen try so hard to poison her step-daughter? And what is a fairy Godmother's real motivation?
Turn the page, and discover these classic fairy stories, told the way they always should have been . . .
This collection includes the award-winning novella BEAUTY, as well as the superb novellas POISON and CHARM.
Okay you guys, I don't know what I was expecting when I opened this book, maybe something like Once Upon A Time...but oh my God these where so much better than I was envisioning! They have gorgeous illustrations throughout the book, to match the gorgeous cover! Each of the stories is fast paced, has a modern feel, and is dark and brilliantly twisted from what we know of the original stories and in general plot wise! Not to mention they're just a liiiiittle bit steamy, which I wasn't expecting! I love how all of the main characters in the story connect throughout the three stories, and how there's appearances from other fairy tale characters that we know from other stories! These stories are completely brilliantly written, and are imaginative and just easy to get lost in as a standard fairy tale! These stories just kept on surprising me, I pretty much read all three in one sitting and I'm kinda desperate for more!
In Poison we get the Queen's POV which makes you feel for her a little bit too, she wasn't completely remorseless and she was an intriguing and complex character, which made a nice change to how she's usually portrayed. Snow White is different to the usual and so is the Huntsman and the Prince? Don't even get me started!
In Charm we see some of the characters that we've already met and I mean..I thought other characters being mixed in was brilliantly done but in this book we see how all the main characters fit together in this world and it's so well done! This one made for more surprising twists, the ugly step sisters aren't quite so ugly or mean and Cinderella isn't quite so perfect as she is in the Disney movie.
In Beauty we take a trip back to what the Prince and the Huntsman where getting up to before we came across them in Poison, it's kind of like a prequel I guess! I loved all the twists to this one again, it was completely freaking brilliant how the author portrayed Beauty and the Beast! Not to mention a couple of other characters!
Like I keep saying, this collection of stories is completely brilliant and if you like fairy tale's and twisted fairy tales or retellings or whatever, I think you're gonna love these new offerings! SO FREAKING BRILLIANT!
Ok Putting that on a 'must read' list :)
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