(OLD) Review: Ember by Bettie Sharpe

Ember by Bettie Sharpe
Release Date: February 24th 2011
Buy: Amazon

Goodreads Summary

Charm is a curse. Love is a fire. This story is no fairytale.

Everyone loves Prince Charming. They have to—he’s cursed. Every man must respect him. Every woman must desire him. One look, and all is lost.

Ember would rather carve out a piece of her soul than be enslaved by passions not her own. She turns to the dark arts to save her heart and becomes the one woman in the kingdom able to resist the Prince’s Charm.

Poor girl. If Ember had spent less time studying magic and more time studying human nature, she might have guessed that a man who gets everything and everyone he wants will come to want the one woman he cannot have.

An original spin on a age old tale

Ember is easily one of the most unique retellings I've ever had the pleasure to read. It had it's faults but the idea behind it was so refreshingly original.

Out of all the Disney princesses out there, Cinderella is my second least favorite (Snow White will always have first place on that list) because she seemed incredibly docile and her.. prince.. was well boring. For crying out loud his name was Prince Charming. And I am just putting this out there, I didn't connect the dots between his name and Prince Charming until recently so it's still a big deal to me. I mean imagine him hanging out with other guys. "HEY MAN, CHARMING, WADDUP". I am getting ahead of myself here. Going back to what I was saying, I love the idea behind it, because what girl wouldn't, but Disney didn't pull of the tale as well as they could have. Sharpe, however, did.

She puts a very original spin on the tale, one I cannot help but love. The tale is dark, it isn't full of rainbows and flowers but instead is full of witchcraft and curses.

It would be appropriate to start off with our Prince Charming. Of course in this case that isn't actually his name. People refer to him as that because he can literally charm the pants off of anyone. Everyone falls in love with him as soon as they see him. He has the power to stop wars just by appearing in front of the enemy. And like every other guy out there (or.. that I've read about) he wants the one woman who won't have him. The one woman who can see through his facade. Before I carry on, you should know, this was a curse (or gift) given to him at birth, everyone knows the tale, they just forget about it when they set eyes on him since they are so enamored by his supposed beauty. Ember, however, sees his charm for what it is, a facade which allows the Prince to always get his way.

Ember falls victim his charm as a young girl of 19 but her dying mother gives her a charm that will lessen the effects of the Prince's dreadful curse. Ember was a damn strong female lead. I have to give her that. But she could also be incredibly dense. It took her a damn long time to realize what was going on between her and Raid. I admired her spirit but I was bothered by how she couldn't pick up on such an obvious fact. I admired how she wasn't willing to just let the curse take over, she wanted to save herself and she'd do anything to achieve that.

The most interesting spin on this book was the step-mother and sisters. They are whores. But the 4 of them got along pretty well. It was the relationship between these 4 women that shined out to me. I'll admit that one of the things I DON'T like about Cinderella's tale was the step family. They treat her horribly in the original tale and I cannot quite understand how her father never saw through that. Luckily, we were spared from that nonsense. It was a relief to see how the 4 of them would do anything for one another. Their relationship was beautiful.

The romance was surprisingly good as well. This isn't a book, it's more like a novella. That usually doesn't leave room for a romance to develop and things just seem.. 'insta'. That wasn't the case here. It went from attraction, which lead to a relationship, which in turn led to love. I am still a little shaky on the why/how/when of 'Raid's' feelings but the romance itself was decent.

The plot. Yeah that needed some working. It was good but there were something things that were a little iffy. The story was too short, it could have easily been fleshed out and delivered on a lot of promises. There were some plot holes as well which could have been filled and it could have been as creepy as it promised to be.

The ending didn't work for me. I wanted something else but it'll do. It wasn't horrible, it was just not what I wanted.

Needless to say this is a great addition to all those wonderful retellings out there. With it's great prose and original spin it is definitely worth reading.

ARC Review: Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge

Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge
Release Date: Jan 28th, 2014
Publisher: Balzer & Bray
Pre-order: Amazon | Book Depository

Goodreads Summary

Graceling meets Beauty and the Beast in this sweeping fantasy about one girl's journey to fulfill her destiny and the monster who gets in her way-by stealing her heart. 

Based on the classic fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, Cruel Beauty is a dazzling love story about our deepest desires and their power to change our destiny.

Since birth, Nyx has been betrothed to the evil ruler of her kingdom-all because of a foolish bargain struck by her father. And since birth, she has been in training to kill him.

With no choice but to fulfill her duty, Nyx resents her family for never trying to save her and hates herself for wanting to escape her fate. Still, on her seventeenth birthday, Nyx abandons everything she's ever known to marry the all-powerful, immortal Ignifex. Her plan? Seduce him, destroy his enchanted castle, and break the nine-hundred-year-old curse he put on her people.

But Ignifex is not at all what Nyx expected. The strangely charming lord beguiles her, and his castle-a shifting maze of magical rooms-enthralls her.

As Nyx searches for a way to free her homeland by uncovering Ignifex's secrets, she finds herself unwillingly drawn to him. Even if she could bring herself to love her sworn enemy, how can she refuse her duty to kill him? With time running out, Nyx must decide what is more important: the future of her kingdom, or the man she was never supposed to love.

I do like a wife with a little malice in her heart.

I was really excited to read this book because it would be my first Beauty and the Beast retelling. It did not disappoint. In fact it was wonderful and would have easily been one of my favorites of the year had it not ended the way it did.

Now I am a huge Disney fan. I love my princesses and I love my fairy tales and I love my HEAs but this book is so different from a typical Disney movie yet it manages to maintain that magical atmosphere that fills you with joy and makes you want to sing.  

This is a story about a girl upon who the fate of a kingdom depends. A girl who has been raised to know she will die. A girl who has been raised to kill a beast.

Nyx is the female lead I’ve been looking for a long long time. She is real. She is not portrayed as some sort of hero even though that is kind of what she is. She is not a nice girl who is excited about giving up her life to save the kingdom. Hell she wants to live. She hates her sister (while simultaneously loving her) because she gets to live while Nyx has to sacrifice her life. Her sister is the loved daughter, the naïve sheltered one while she is the one whose aunt gave her advice on how to have sex with her soon to be husband. She hates her father but she still wishes that he felt some regret for what he was condemning her to. She has ‘poison’ in her heart. She isn’t a sweet girl, she can be cruel, she is clever and will use your weaknesses against you if it'll help her but in spite of this she is still capable of being nice. Underneath all her bavardo she IS a girl who is scared, a girl who doesn’t want to die, a girl who wants to be loved even though she isn’t perfect.

Ignifex was incredibly charming. You cannot help but fall for him, even when he is the enemy. I think what’s most interesting about him is that he can charm your pants off even when he is not actually a good guy. He never actually acts in a way that would label him an asshole though, he is just, a mystery. How do you define evil? What he does makes him a bad guy but are the people who come asking him for favors any better themselves?  People, who are selfish, people who think they deserve the best of everything. These aren’t innocent people who go to him asking for favors, so is he evil for making them suffer? Or is he not?

The romance between the two is swoon worthy. The Disney fan in me had tears in her eyes half the time. They accept each other for who they are, they don’t expect the other to change. It takes a while for them to get there but they do, they do get there and it’s worth the journey.

Cruel Beauty is a refreshingly original novel. It takes two of my favorite ‘genres’, fairy tale retellings and mythology, (I have many..eek) and mashes them together. It does that really well too. The world building is magnificent. It has a certain magical feel to it but it is also dark, in a way that sometimes gives you goosebumps. Add to that the elements from greek mythology and you have a winner.

There was a certain twist that I am sure everyone will see coming. The problem with the said twist is that it is poorly executed. Very poorly. I wouldn’t even mind the obviousness had it actually made sense when it happened.

Which brings me to the ending. The ending did not work at all.  It left me confused and I didn’t get the kind of closure I had sought. I expected a completely different ending. I WANTED a different ending. Because the ending we got kind of took away from both Nyx and Ignifex’s personality. It changed them into something they weren’t, they were no longer the characters I fell in love with. The ending was too perfect. Too sugar sweet. With such a great main character, you don’t actually want that kind of ending because it takes away what you love most about her. I pretty much refused to acknowledge that ending, I mentally re-wrote one. Yes that is how much I didn't like the ending. I guess this was mostly a 'it's me not you' thing and I am sure other people won't have the same problems I did (except Khanh, but I already ranted about it to her so I didn't turn into a rage beast thanks to her). 

Despite everything, I’ll have to say, this was one hell of a retelling and I recommend it to everyone. It has a strong female lead, a male character you can actually see yourself loving and a wonderful relationship. Plus the love child of a fairy tale retelling and Greek mythology is bound to be awesome.