Fairytale

A magical story about two Fay princesses separated at birth and their journey to return to their kingdom. This first book in the series focuses on the dark haired, wild Brigit. She is beautiful and confused and mystical and fighting to keep her inner wildness at bay. When the elderly homeless man she cares for, Raze, becomes ill, Brigit gets tangled up in a scheme to forge and steal paintings to pay for Raze's health care. Never does she imagine that one of her victims will change her life, and she will change his.

The story is creative and well written. It's a bit too "mystical" for my personal reading tastes and I never really connected with the characters. It's entertaining and a fun read.

Our Review, by LITERAL ADDICTION's Pack Alpha - Michelle L. Olson:

I've had Fairytale on my Kindle for quite some time. I had even started it once upon a time but was pulled away for something else and never ended up finishing it. I'm a huge Maggie Shayne fan and I can't say exactly why I hadn't finished reading it before now. Once I sat down and restarted it again though, I was kicking myself for not having done it sooner. I was thoroughly enchanted.

The YA tags for this book are completely misleading and I can't blame the reviewers who went in expecting a YA, got something completely different, and therefore gave it low ratings. It's not a young adult novel, it's a beautifully written adult fairytale. :)

Adam is one of those heroes that show more you can't help but love because while he's smart, sexy and confident, he's also a bit tortured. Plagued by memories and dreams that caused thoughts he was punished for having, he's made it his life's work to try and understand.

Brigit is a wonderful heroine. She's sassy, tough, and multi-dimensional. Torn between what she knows is right and what she's forced to do, she scrapes through life the best she can and overcomes some pretty hefty obstacles. She also deals with the fear that she might be a bit crazy, though in her heart she knows she's not.

The two of them together are amazing. A literal fairytale written by fate, it doesn't come easy for our leading couple. When they finally figure things out though, it's an emotional roller coaster of epic proportions.

When a book pulls you along, mesmerized, and ends with such emotion that it has your heart close to bursting & you close to tears, you know it was good!

While not the fastest paced read in the beginning, it was beautifully built, magically crafted, & wonderfully concluded. I can't wait to see what's next in the FAIRIES OF RUSH series.

LITERAL ADDICTION gives Fairytale 4 1/2 Skulls and would recommend it to fantasy and paranormal romance readers who are searching for an emotional and action packed read. show less

As a young boy, the hero ventured into a cave near his house and found himself in Rush, the land of the Fairies. There he meet a woman who told him about his fate to fall in love with a girl and bring her home. But his abusive father beat the nonsense of fairies out of his young mind and the hero know lives in denial of every meeting the woman. But he found this painting called Rush which had the face of a woman whom utterly captivated him to the point of obsession. The heroine was dumped at the alter of a church as a baby and all she remembers of her life before the orphanage was the story the nun would tell her. A mythical fairy tale about twin girls and fairies. She grew up on the streets, pick pocketing and forging painting until show more she cleaned her act up and opened a flower shop. But her past is back to haunt her and she's forced to become a thief again to save the life of a loved one. From the second they meet, the hero and heroine are drawn together like magnets. The heroine recognises the man who haunts her dream instantly and she attempts to flee from him, knowing it will kill her to betray him by stealing his painting. The hero is slow to realize she's the woman in his painting but when he does he becomes obsessed with having her. Though he knows very well that she's not to be trusted, that she has secrets and that she's after something, he can't stop himself from falling for her. I did like his weakness as at first he's portrayed as a harsh joyless man but with the heroine it's clear that he's trapped. She is tortured by guilt for deceiving the man she cares for, especially when she's able to see how much pain his life has given him. Abusive father, thieving ex wife and voices in his head make the hero fear he's going crazy. He begins to suspect that the mysterious yet stunning heroines is a fae herself and he must wrap his head around everything he's denied for so many years. I thought this was by far the best Maggie Shayne novel I have read so far. The intensity and chemistry between the two characters was awesome. Though I thought the chick cried FAR too often, I enjoyed reading about her struggles with trying to save the hero while at the same time actually dooming him. show less

Characters. In the book you start with the main characters as children. It is only for a chapter but it was enough to endear Bridgit and Adam to me. They are interesting and they don't always do the right thing so they each have a depth of their own. Bridgit is hiding from her dark and illegal past and when it finally catches up with her she meets Adam. Adam is disillusioned toward beautiful women and magic thanks to his ex-wife and abusive father. They each did what they could to protect the other and I sometimes respected their choices and others yelled at them to just stop stalling. Yet through the entire book I genuinely cared about each character. However, there is another main character than is not mentioned in the summary: show more Bridin. At first she was just a nuisance that I had to slosh through to get back to the Bridgit and Adam soap opera. I did not care about her because there was almost no difference from between her as a child or her as an adult. Unless you count the fact that her captor was sexually attracted to her as a character development and not the development of puberty. She bugged me and I could not bring myself to even pretend that I cared about her. And then because of her actions, emotionless attitude, and annoying serenity that every other narrator commented on by the end of the novel I really disliked her. To give you an idea of how much I disliked her, I disliked her more than I disliked any of the so-called 'villains'. I actually thought of her as the main antagonist because the ones that the author wanted us to dislike did not seem real to me.

Plot. While I liked the part of the plot that could have made this book less of a fantasy I did not really find some of the more fantasy aspects very logical. I realize that it may seem very weird to look for logic in a fantasy novel but every book needs to make sense in the context of the world that it is in. The fact that Bridin and Bridgit left when they were babies and yet Bridin remembered things that no baby could really bugged me. I think it is safe to say that any of the plot that included Bridin was the part of the plot that I did not like. So beyond Bridin and her Machiavellian schemes the plot was not complicated but very enjoyable. My favorite part was the very end because of how cute and fluffy it was. I love fluffy love scenes almost as much as I love the fast paced adventure sequences. show less

Readable, but about twice as long as it really needed to be. The characters were a tad bland and the passionate relationship started too suddenly and a little too creepily (I mean, he was watching her bathe, for goodness sake). The whole time I was just like "for goodness sake, 'fess up to what you're doing Brigit, and then Adam and you can work together to trap the bad guy" and then when the "climax" finally came, it was over in a heartbeat (and kinda cheesy, but still).

The whole plot felt rather contrived and the emotions forced. Overall, I skim-read the last 20% because I had read too much to give up, but did not want to waste any more time on it than I had already.

Once again it appears I am in the minority. I think this book was okay but, there was nothing special. No hook, line, sinker and no I would go on to read the next book in the series. I had trouble getting into the book and it never went anywhere for me. It was a free read and it was okay.. I do not think the author did anything wrong I just felt like I could never connect to the story line of this twist of a fairy tale. I didn't think the characters were spectacular and the story line never had me hooked. I probably won't read the next book in the series but, I may read another Maggie Shane book!