Twisted Kingdom

A Book of Wonders for Grown-Up Readers

Every once in a great while a book comes along that reminds us of the magic spell that stories can cast over us–to dazzle, entertain, and enlighten. Welcome to the Arabian Nights for our time–a lush and fantastical epic guaranteed to spirit you away from the very first page….

Secreted away in a garden, a lonely girl spins stories to warm a curious prince: peculiar feats and unspeakable fates that loop through each other and back again to meet in the tapestry of her voice. Inked on her eyelids, each twisting, tattooed tale is a piece in the puzzle of the girl’s own hidden history. And what tales she tells! Tales of shape-shifting witches and wild horsewomen, heron kings and beast princesses, snake gods, dog monks, and living stars–each story more strange and fantastic than the one that came before. From ill-tempered “mermaid” to fastidious Beast, nothing is ever quite what it seems in these ever-shifting tales–even, and especially, their teller. Adorned with illustrations by the legendary Michael Kaluta, Valente’s enchanting lyrical fantasy offers a breathtaking reinvention of the untold myths and dark fairy tales that shape our dreams. And just when you think you’ve come to the end, you realize the adventure has only begun….

I was drawn to this book from the first time I saw it. It has a wonderful cover that you cannot help paying attention to. They say not to judge a book by the cover, but sometimes covers are so eye-appealing you want the book just so it can grace your shelf and add some colour. Couple that with the fact that the recycled paper look gives the book a bit more of an older feel, it makes for a wonderful first impression of an author that I have never read before. So, of course, now the true test is whether the book is a decent read or not.

On to the premise. When I read the back of the book I was interested simply by the fact that they are marketing it as "A Book of Wonders for Grown-Up Readers". I am quite fond of novels of the fairy tale variety, so I was interested to see what this book had in store for me. Normally to read a really good fairy tale novel, I tend to have to read young adult books, but this one was marketed for an older audience. And, the style that it was written in is perfect for the type of novel it is. Fairy tales got there beginning as oral tales, with someone remembering all the stories and either passing them on through the family or traveling around and telling tales at towns. It was not until people like the Grimm Brothers that fairy tales were transformed from oral tales to written ones. This novel is written, of course, but one of the main characters is telling the stories to a young prince. Her tales are not written down in a conventional manner, but she was born to know them.

This is the story of a lonely girl who has found herself on the outskirts of civilization. People fear her and generally avoid her, so she spends her childhood being raised by nature in the garden. It is a young boy that befriends her. He believes that since he is a prince he needs to prove his bravery, so he seeks her out. His family is not supportive of his sneaking away, and his sister will do most anything to see him not be able to slip from her sight. He is addicted to the stories, though, and finds many ways to have them continue. She transports him, and thus the reader, to amazing worlds of fantastic creatures and wonderful adventures. It is really two novels in one, so you get the chance to read two novels for the price of one. The best thing about the second book is when pieces left unfinished in the first story found their way into the second.

I loved this book! Catherynne is a fantastic world creator and I cannot wait to read the next book! I ordered it today, actually, as it came out on October 30th. If anyone is looking for a book for Carl's Once Upon a Time challenge next year, I recommend this one!

To learn more about this book head on over to Random House.

Book Description:

The award-winning author of The Mysteries returns with another captivating novel in which modern-day enigmas and age-old myths come together with spellbinding results. Here is an enchanting tale set in a land rich with folklore–and ripe for a rekindling of the old ways.

Nestled on the coast of Scotland, Appleton was once famous for its apples. Now, though the orchards are long gone, locals still dream of the town’s glory days, when an Apple Queen was crowned at the annual fair and good luck seemed a way of life. And outsiders are still drawn to the charming village, including three very different American women.

Enchanted by Appleton’s famously ornate, gold-domed library, divorcée Kathleen Mullaroy has left her cosmopolitan job to start anew as the town’s head librarian. Widowed Nell Westray hopes for a quiet life of gardening in the place where she and her husband spent their happiest moments. And young Ashley Kaldis has come to find her roots, and learns that the town’s fortunes turned when her grandmother was crowned Apple Queen–then mysteriously disappeared.

When a sudden landslide cuts Appleton off from the wider world–and the usual constraints of reality–the village reveals itself to be an extraordinary place, inhabited by legendary beings, secret rooms, and the blossoming of a rare fruit not seen in decades. Most unexpected is a handsome stranger who will draw all three women into an Otherworld in which luck and love will return to Appleton–if only one of them will believe.

Lush with the romance and allure of ancient traditions, The Silver Bough will propel you into a land where, as in Eden, the bite of a single apple can alter the whole course of reality.

I originally got this book at the end of 2006 during my reading lull. I got inspired to read it because of a review from another blogger. I am glad I read it. I had never heard of or read Lisa Tuttle before, so I was glad to try this out. It was a worthwhile read.

I seem to be on a fantasy kick lately. I really enjoyed this book. It was a bit of a fairy tale taking place during contemporary times. It is about a small town that most people are not even aware existed, Appleton. Suddenly, though, everything is about to change. Three Americans travel to the pennisula for very different reasons. Each woman tells her story, with the help of a few males, to explain what happened on Appleton to put it on the map.

I had some moments of deja vu reading this book. There was this scene that was very odd. The librarian, one of the main characters, went to visit the old librarian and she met all her ancient relatives. Considering how odd it was, I was surprised to feel like I had read a similar scene before. Kathleen was my favourite aspect of this book. By adding in the library, it added a large reading aspect to this novel. I have to also say that the library in this book sounds absolutely gorgeous! I would not mind visiting there.

Nell is hard to understand in the beginning. She has been living in Appleton for a while now, but she has become rather reclusive. It is not until she starts to explain her past that we understand her future. She is one of the key notes to this book, the safety of Appleton ends up in her hands because she is the only person on the famous island that still grows apples. the enconomy suffered and apples became unhelpful. Nell is resurrecting that age old tradition.

The young character is Ashley. She has traveled to Appleton to find out why her grandmother left Ireland and traveled to America. It was the family secret, and she feels the need to learn where she came from. Her grandmother's past is heavily involved in what her grandmother did years ago. She travels back at the time when her grandmothers past needs to be corrected.

Overall, this is an interesting book full of magic and make-believe. There are many other things happening, too. It is the sort of book where you have to believe in the unordinary, even if the characters in the book are having a hard time with it.

4/5

From Amazon.ca:

When a dragon storms the castle, what should a (virgin) princess do?

Why, turn to her studies, of course! But nothing practical-minded Princess Andromeda of Acadia finds gives a definitive solution. The only Traditional answer, though, is soothing the marauding dragon by a virgin sacrifice. Things are going fairly smoothly with the lottery--except for the women chosen, of course--until Princess Andromeda herself is picked!

But facing down the dragon doesn't go quite as planned, and now, with the help of her Champion, Sir George, Andromeda searches for the dragon's lair. But even--especially--in the Five Hundred Kingdoms, bucking Tradition isn't easy. It takes the strongest of wills, knowledge, quick wits and a refusal to give up, no matter what happens along the way….

The Review:

This book is the sequel to The Fairy Godmother by Mercedes Lackey, which I read last year. It is part of Lackey's Five Hundred Kingdom series, and is in essence a fairy-tale retelling. To refresh everyone's memory, this series takes fairy tale conventions and messes around with them. In the previous novel, we see Elena, who becomes a fairy godmother, fight what is known as "The Tradition" and become the woman that she wants to be and fall in love with the man that she wants to love in love with. In One Good Knight, she is back, but this time another young lady has taken the center stage as the main character.

Princess Andromeda lives in a very small kingdom, a kingdom that really has no assets and appears to only exist by luck. Her mother does not agree with how Andromeda acts, because Andromeda is not your conventional princess. She is actually quite smart, and while she is beautiful, she wears glasses that make her unattractive to most suitors. Not that Andromeda is really interested in boys anyways. She has a brain, though, and spends the majority of her time with a nose in a book learning what there is to know about the world. Her father is dead, and her mother is more interested in her kingdom than her daughter, so it is mostly Andromeda's guards that raise her.

The way things work is that there always traditional manners in which things occur in fairy tales. So, when something happens that the tradition recognizes as should be going a certain way, it tries to help it along. Sometimes this is what people desire, and other times it is something that everyone fights against. While the tradition plays a role in this novel, it seemed that it was mentioned more in the previous novel. Elena seemed more aware of what was happening, Andromeda and the other characters she meets during the course of the novel just try to do the best they can, but they are also very good at both tricking the Tradition and using it to their advantage.

This is not your typical damsel in distress novel. The third book in the series is either out or will be out soon. I am looking forward to seeing another novel where fairy tales are followed, but the women have brains.

4/5

I have seen this book making the blog rounds in the last few months, and decided that I was going to eventually read it. I was trying to decide which blog to put it on, though, but since it is a fairy tale, I decided to put it here.

From Amazon:

Kate DiCamillo, author of the Newbery Honor book Because of Winn-Dixie, spins a tidy tale of mice and men where she explores the "powerful, wonderful, and ridiculous" nature of love, hope, and forgiveness. Her old-fashioned, somewhat dark story, narrated "Dear Reader"-style, begins "within the walls of a castle, with the birth of a mouse." Despereaux Tilling, the new baby mouse, is different from all other mice. Sadly, the romantic, unmouselike spirit that leads the unusually tiny, large-eared mouse to the foot of the human king and the beautiful Princess Pea ultimately causes him to be banished by his own father to the foul, rat-filled dungeon.

The first book of four tells Despereaux's sad story, where he falls deeply in love with Princess Pea and meets his cruel fate. The second book introduces another creature who differs from his peers--Chiaroscuro, a rat who instead of loving the darkness of his home in the dungeon, loves the light so much he ends up in the castle in the queen's soup. The third book describes young Miggery Sow, a girl who has been "clouted" so many times that she has cauliflower ears. Still, all the slow-witted, hard-of-hearing Mig dreams of is wearing the crown of Princess Pea. The fourth book returns to the dungeon-bound Despereaux and connects the lives of mouse, rat, girl, and princess in a dramatic denouement.

Children whose hopes and dreams burn secretly within their hearts will relate to this cast of outsiders who desire what is said to be out of their reach and dare to break "never-to-be-broken rules of conduct." Timothy Basil Ering's pencil illustrations are stunning, reflecting DiCamillo's extensive light and darkness imagery as well as the sweet, fragile nature of the tiny mouse hero who lives happily ever after.

I thought that this was a very well done young reader novel. So well done that I enjoyed it probably as much as any young reader. It is just cute, with a very likeable cast of characters. I think the Amazon quote sums the story up nicely, so I will just say that I very much enjoyed this book. I had read Because of Winn-Dixie by her, so this is not the first time that I have enjoyed one of her books.

4/5

Last year, I read The Light Princess by this same author. His books are rather interesting fairy tales, and I felt that I should read another one by him. So, I read the one that I had heard of, The Princess and the Goblin.

From the back of the book:

The Ageless story of mystery and magic, good and evil.

Princess Irene's discovery of a secret stair to the top turret of the castle leads to a wonderful revelation. At the same time, the miner's son Curdie overhears a fiendish plot by the goblins who love below the mountain. But it will take all their wit and courage, and the help of Irene's magic ring, to make sense of their separate knowledge and foil the goblins' schemes.

This is the story of Princess Irene and Curdie. The castle is located around a goblin underground home, and because of that, Irene is not allowed out after dark. One night, though, her and her nurse lose track of time and find that they are not going to make it back to the castle in time. That is where Curdie enters the story. He knows the tricks to make the goblins leave him alone, and helps the princess and her nurse back to the castle. Then, Irene thinks that she will have little reason to see him again.

In the meantime, she discovers that her many great grandmother is living in a turret room in the castle. No one believes that she is truly there, but Irene knows. She has many adventures that her grandmother play a part in. It is her grandmother that gives her the magic ring, that aids her when bad things happen. Curdie is very brave, and gets down in the thick of things by spying on the goblins to learn their plan. Irene, on the other hand, is not your damsel in distress, she gets herself out of situations either on her own or with the help of her grandmother. This is not the Grimm's fairy tales, it is truly a modern look at princesses.

I think that this is a good read. Irene is a cute character and their adventures will keep you turning the pages.

4/5

This novel, which I had never heard of before, was a present from my boyfriend. Why did I have to read it pretty much right away? Fairy tale retelling!

From Amazon:

In Lickiss' charming, clever, and surprisingly substantial slice of fictional cake, Princess Vevila, having had enough of dancing with doltish prospective husbands, would rather seek out adventure. Meanwhile her cousin, Prince Althelstan, has fought through yards of brambles into a somnolent castle to discover three sleeping princes instead of one spellbound princess. "It has to have been a transcription error," he muses, just as he notices a slender beauty dozing near the throne. Captivated, Althelstan decides to inveigle his cousin into waking the princes, which, he hopes, will simultaneously free the object of his affection. Aiding Althelstan are three recent graduates of magical Recondite University, all gearing up to confront the witch who, claiming to be protecting the innocent princes, cast the sleeping spell. Figure in a mysterious little man with mismatched clothing and handfuls of gold, and an insecure princess with two sallow stepsisters, and, well, you see where we're headed. A welcome addition to the fractured fairy tale genre and perfect reading for the beach or an air-conditioned castle bedroom.

In the sub-script to the title, it says "Not just another frog-meets-girl story". And it was rather different. Some of the fairy tales present in the novel are Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, The Frog Prince (which I just read for Fairy Tales Revisited), Rumplestilskin (I am going to have to look that word up), and more. The story goes that a prince has been informed that he can only marry a princess, but the only princess available is 2-years-old, and thus not right for him. He hears of a sleeping castle, though, and a princess that needs to be awoken by a kiss. He sets off to search the castle in the hopes that he will find the woman that he is meant to marry. The problem is that an "s" was added, because there is not a princess waiting for him, but not one, but three princes. This presents a problem.

The young prince, though, has a solution. There is a woman in the castle that he is sure is a princess, so he goes and gets his cousin to wake the princes so that the castle will awake and he can marry the young princess. Along the way he collects three wizards, that really add to the story. Unfortunately for our young prince, the fairy godmother that locked the princes up in the first place does not want them to have to face the cruel world, so she tries to put a stop to it. The princes cousin, Vevila, also proves to be a problem when she is forced into a dark chamber and told to make straw into gold. Sound familiar? Unlike the original tale, though, Vevila tries to escape several times. She is not interested in getting married, she is there for the adventure.

While all of this is going on, 4 more young girls enter the story. One other is put to the princess test, where we witness a girl who has to sleep on a great pile of mattresses. Can we guess what the goal is? Then, there is a large ball in order for an older woman to find husbands for her daughters. The ball is crashed, though, by a mysterious young woman. Know what fairy tale that is?

All in all, I thought this book was a very refreshing retelling of some of my favourite fairy tales. It is a relatively short read, but enjoyable. I suggest it if you are into fairy tales, you will not be disappointed.

4/5

From the back of the book:

Weary of her storybook, one "without pictures or conversations," the young and imaginative Alice follows a hasty hare underground-to come face-to-face with some of the strangest adventures and most fantastic characters in all of literature. The Ugly Duchess, the Mad Hatter, the weeping Mock Turtle, the diabolical Queen of Hearts, the Cheshire Cat--each more eccentric than the last--could only have come from that master of sublime nonsense, Lewis Carroll. In farcical satire of rigid Victorian society, this arresting parody of the fears, anxieties, and complexities of growing up, Carroll was one of the few adult writers to enter successfully the children's world of make-believe, where the impossible becomes possible, the unreal, real, and where the heights of adventure are limited only by the depths of imagination.

I read these for one of my university classes. I have never been able to get into either novel by Carroll, althought this is the second time I have read both of them. I am just going to acknowledge I read them. And open the doors for discussion. What do you guys think of Carroll's works? Have you seen the Disney movie? Have you seen any other movie version of the works?

I had to read this short novel for one of my classes at school, it only took like an hour. That's the good thing about teen fiction, it can be short. The thing I particularly like about this novel is that while it was short and meant for a young audience, it had many aspects to it that were appealing to the older readers as when you are older and spent most of your life having to analyse books for school, you notice things that a young reader would not. The book reads like a fairy tale, and actually takes in aspects of the fairy tale genre like "Sleeping Beauty", which is one of the main ones. My professor, though, considers it a fantasy novel as well. Really, who can say that some fantasy novels are not closely related to fairy tales, anyways. They have the unreal aspect to them, at least by today's standards.

It is very hard to talk about this book without ruining it, as when you see the word "light" it can have many connontations to it, and it is part of the delight of the book to figure out what "light" means in this case, so I will not ruin it for anyone. Never know when the book will come their way and then they will know what happens and it will not be the same experience if you know what is going to happen. I will just summarize very briefly. As in fairy tales, there is a king and a queen. Like in "Sleeping Beauty" they are without a child and greatly desire one. When the child, a girl, is finally born there is much rejoicing. Also, like in "Sleeping Beauty", there is an evil and scorned woman that recks havoc on the royal family. The sister to the King, who everytime you think is gone from the story, she is back to create even more despair for the family. One of ploys of destruction brings a prince into the story, can't have a fairy tale with a young maiden without the hero, now can we. He rides in to save the day, but not in the ways that we have come to expect from other fairy tales. It is not as simple as kissing the girl and all his problems are solved, there actually is a near-death experience that he has to get through or not get through, I will not reveal if this story has a happy ending or not.

An enjoyable read.

4/5

I am so sad about my reaction to this book. It is supposed to be such a good book, and I did not like it at all! It just did not attact me to it. If anything, I found it really boring. There was not a lot of action in it. Yes, it was interesting to see how the characters we know from The Wizard of Oz developed, but other than that I find it a terrible book. I am trying to find something good to say about it, and I suppose he writes good descriptions, the book just seemed to be all about description. I have read other Maguire books and enjoyed them, just for some reason I could not get into this one. It's a sad thing to happen, but just goes to show you the greatest books in the world can be the worst to some people. I just thought I would say a bit, it is hard for me to write a review on a bad book short of saying that I found that nothing was happening, I was forever bored and one page seemed to take a year to read. I tried and tried to get into it, hoping that each new chapter would bring something to get me interested, and it did not. I hate starting out the new year with two lousy books. I am usually good at picking books I will like.

2/5

From the back of the book:

Percival's Angel

Lili, an apprentice of the legendary Nimway, the Lady of the Lake, lives among the magical spirits of Fey Forest. Lili has magic in her soul and the knowledge of enchantment and spells. But there is one magic she cannot command - the magic of the Human Heart. Of all those in the world of Fey, there is but one boy who can help her...

Awed by the splendour of King Arthur's knights, seduced by tales of glory, Percival has a fantasy of his own. But to safely embark on a quest for the legendary Holy Grail he will need the help of an angel. Only Lili can take them far beyond the limits of their home, and closter to everything they cherish most. Yet to survive in the Human world it will take more that a passion for adventure, more tha desire to change their destiny, and more than the counsel of the shining giants of Arthur's court.

I bought this book because I like novels that retell the adventures of Arthur and his court, but this book really didn't do anything for me. According to the back of the book, some reviewers found it comparable to Marion Zimmer Bradley. Far from it! It does have an Avalon-like place, like Bradley's novels, but the adventures and the writing style do not hold up to her at all. Percival has been secluded from the rest of the world because his mother already lost her other sons and husband to battle, and does not want the same to happen to Percival. So, with the help of a member of her court, she takes her son and a girl that was like a daughter to her and hides them away from the outside world. She hopes this will be enough to save Percival, but alas you can only keep the outside out so long and then it manages to make itself known. Percival learns about the outside world, and suddenly he wants to see more of it, taking Lili with him.

The problem is that he is not very good, he has never had to know how to save himself, so he is a little lost and naive when he makes his way to the court. It is Lili that really wins the battles for him, and it is her that knows enough about the outside world to survive. She tries to help him, but in the end his head gets too big for his helmet and he decides he will be fine on his own. It is this moment that danger strikes, but in the meantime, this is supposed to be a novel about Arthur in some sense. He does make a couple of appearances, but not enough to make you understand what the point of this book is.

2.5/5