Camille Peters

Very, very good retelling of the Goose Girl (certainly better than others out there I've read). Best of this series, too. (I see that the author commented that this was her favorite book in the series, and I can see why.)

The thing I liked about this was how she developed the relationship between the prince, who was supposed to marry a princess but got duped into marrying her double. I really enjoyed watching the interaction of the two as they tried to start out life together, based on an show more unfortunate lie that neither was responsible for.

What was NOT believable (and why I took off a star) was the legal resolution of the whole situation. Why would you need any justification for telling the lying princess to go away??????? Clearly the party was acting in bad faith. And the power dynamics between the kingdoms seemed unrealistic, too. Either the one was powerful enough to foist an alliance via marriage on the other, or not. Why would the discovery of an obscure... well, you'll see when you read it. (You should read it, anyway, regardless of my criticism.) show less

This book is not the strongest start to a series, but later books in the series are better. This one does not stand out much among the sea of clean fairy-tale retellings. Fortunately, you don't really need to read it to understand the later books, so if you want, you could skip this.

The protagonist is a girl who lost her father years ago and decided to close herself off to love permanently. I guess that's an ok idea--at least it explains the iciness--but in this book, it the execution maybe show more fell short of the idea and wound up feeling rather contrived to me, which made me a lot less interested. Anyway, she also has a special relationship with the forest, which always opens pathways for her. But one day, it refuses to lead her home; instead, it leads her to a man. And then it happens again. And then she winds up far from home, in a mistaken competition to be a bride to the prince.

For me, that's where the story started to become interesting. In the royal court, the author starts to show her wit and her sense of humor and her remarkable skill at creating charming characters (which unfortunately wasn't really exercised on the protagonists).

The best scenes from this novel are how she is helped by the kind nobles of the court. They cover her etiquette mistakes, often in hilarious ways, and try to make what she does seem natural. They are the absolute opposites of the snooty noble stereotype. Honestly, they're more interesting than the main characters. I wish I were like those people.

There's the jilted princess, whom the protagonist is (unwittingly) replacing. Despite knowing exactly what's going on, she is nothing but kind to her replacement. That princess gets a story to herself in the fourth book in this series ("Reflections").

Then there's prince Liam, who in this story and the next serves as a hilarious joker with a kind heart, and his sisters who are a hoot together too. Liam is a protagonist of the third book in the series ("Identity").

Somehow the author manages to portray these good people without making them seem unrealistically wonderful; many other clean fairy tale retellings seem far too idealistic, but I did not find this series to be so.

The story is an ok story, it just didn't grab me as much as the others in the series. And I must admit, I did have a bit of trouble with the magic forest. That seemed... I don't know, too magical? Yes, this is fantasy, so magic is expected; but magic that is too arbitrary requires justification. We never have any idea why the forest does this. (And such a remarkable forest seems to have no role in the later novels, either.) That may or may not bother you.

I actually read the third book ("Identity") before reading this one. The third book is probably the best in the series, so far. I think that's probably a good reading order: read the third book, and then read this one if you want a bit more background on the characters (especially prince Liam). show less

Eden and her mother lives alone outside the village. They make a living by creating potions from the plants her mother grows in their garden. They are treated with suspicion by the villagers because they are thought to use magic. But Eden has a secret...while she can not dream herself she can see peoples dreams. Trying to figure out the cause she collects the dreams in jars and writes down the details. Other than this fact her life is pretty mundane until one day a talking sentient cloud show more appears before her claiming to investigating the theft of "dream dust". Things get only stranger from there when a young man appears in her bedroom and she has her first dream...a nightmare.

Who is he? Why does the cloud think she is a Dreamer?

Maybe all her questions can be answered if she goes to Dream world,the place where the magical creatures who weave dreams for every humans live...


I have to agree with another reviewer that the depictions of Dreamworld in its pastel pink glory did remind me of 80s/90s cartoons like for example Lady Lovely Locks ,and I think the plot would lend itself well to animation.

A cute read with enough drama and darkness to keep it from being too cloingly sweet. It could benefit from some editing and perhaps certain side characters could have benefited from a bit more depth. But in all a pleasant enough read. show less

I really enjoyed this novel. It was a romantic story that really showed an interesting world. I liked the writing style, I found it sucked me in and kept me reading. I am really interested in reading other books from this author because I think they would be really good.

That being said, I wanted more from this story. I wish the story had been a little longer, just so there was enough time for things to develop and be explored. There was a lot crammed into these pages, so it ended up feeling show more a little rushed. I don't think I got a good sense of the characters, it actually took most of the book before I really got invested in their story. What kept me going was the writing style and the curiosity about the world and how things would play out, it would have been perfect if the characters had been a bit better.

The way time moved in the story was interesting. I don't think I have quite seen a story written with time jumps like this. I'm sure they exist, I just haven't read them. I'm not sure how I feel about it. I do like having that retrospective look at the story. It gave it a certain tone that I felt was different. If things had been linear perhaps the issue of not feeling connected to the characters would have been different, but the story would have had a different tone, so I don't know which I would have preferred. I think with the time jumps it had a sort of secretive feel to it. Which worked well with the story. I think one or two of the time jumps was a little difficult for me to remember how much time had passed, but that is a fault of my own for not remembering.

I wanted to see more of the world explored. Most of the focus was placed on the interaction between the characters, so I didn't really get a good sense of the magic system, or how all of the politics worked between people. I think I was just so interested in every aspect of the story that I wanted to know far more than was necessary for this book.

Also, I would have liked to see more of the fairytale elements in it. I love fairytale retellings and that was why I was drawn to this story to begin with. I just didn't see enough of them within the story for me to get a strong sense of those original tales. However, this story was still a good story that did have those things mixed in, it just didn't feel like a retelling. If you didn't know they were there, you probably could have missed them. However, I think the story was good without them. Too much would have changed this story into something it didn't need to be.

Overall, this was a cute romance story with a lot of interesting twists. I felt like there was a lot to like about it, even if I would have liked to see a bit more from it. Like I said, I really liked the writing style and plan to read more from this author.

I read an ARC of this book for free, and I am voluntarily leaving this review. show less