Series: Fairy Tales #5
A new suitor. A shocking discovery.
Margaretha has always been a romantic, and hopes her newest suitor, Lord Claybrook, is destined to be her one true love. But then an injured man is brought to the castle, claiming to be an English lord who was left for dead by Claybrook’s men. She convinces herself “Lord Colin” is just an addled stranger, until Colin retrieves an heirloom she lost in a well and asks her to spy on Claybrook as repayment.
Margaretha knows she could never be a spy—not only does she tend to talk too much, she’s sure Colin is completely wrong about her potential betrothed. But she soon discovers her romantic notions may have been clouding her judgment about not only Colin but Claybrook as well. She soon finds herself running for her life–and it may be up to her to save her father and her family from one man’s wicked plot.
2.5 Drink Me Potions
I had really hoped to like this one. The synopsis of The Princess Spy was intriguing, although it didn’t really remind me of any particular fairy tale story like the others in Dickerson’s collection. And after seeing Margaretha featured in The Captive Maiden, a book I enjoyed and read not long ago, I had SUCH high hopes.
Only to fall back gently into disappointment.
Margaretha talks a lot. She really does. Yammers on and on about whatever she’s thinking. And she knows this. Even her little brothers think she talks WAY too much. I’m gonna agree with this. It was a huge challenge to get beyond it. I mean, it’s not that I didn’t like Margaretha ’cause of it. I just wanted to skip reading over her huge monologues occasionally.
Oh, but that wasn’t the only thing. Oh no. The beginning was SO boring. Margaretha thinks Colin is kinda not fully there in the head, while he’s yapping away in a slightly crazy manner about Lord Claybrook. It was exhausting. Honestly. Nothing really happened until they got beyond that point of believing he wasn’t crazy.
Their building relationship and romance was believable, but it wasn’t in any way….exciting. Okay, basically the whole story lacked excitement. It was just on this constant level of emotion. There were “fight scenes”, and I’m putting that in quotations ’cause they didn’t last long, but I didn’t ever really think that anyone important was gonna die or anything. So there goes the suspense or potential edge-of-my-seat moments.
Colin was a good guy. He may have been trying to exact revenge and it took him a while to realize that what he was doing wasn’t necessarily bringing Claybrook to justice. I liked the moral of the story, but it wasn’t the kind of fairy tale quality I had been looking forward to. Therefore, disappointment just gives way to apathy. I read the whole thing but my heart was never really INTO it, if you know what I mean. I just didn’t really care in the end about anything or anyone in the book, and that’s never a good sign with me when reading a story.
Overall Recommendation:
There was potential from the synopsis for a fun and grand adventure with Margaretha. After all, she was already a familiar character from the previous Dickerson novel, and an interesting character who loved to talk a whole lot. And I do mean, a whole lot. Spying for Colin could’ve dragged out into many different areas, but it didn’t last. It was boring in the beginning, and nothing could really excite me from there on. It might just be me, but this latest installment really lacked the whole fairy tale theme. She was just a girl with a title back in the Middle Ages. There was no fairy tale magic to spice it up, and I think that was what could’ve saved The Princess Spy. I’d say it’s readable still, but not necessary.
Down the Rabbit Hole 