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Review: The Merchant’s Daughter by Melanie Dickerson

October 11, 2015October 16, 2015 Andge @ Down the Rabbit Hole

Series: Fairy Tales #2

An unthinkable danger. An unexpected choice.

Annabel, once the daughter of a wealthy merchant, is trapped in indentured servitude to Lord Ranulf, a recluse who is rumored to be both terrifying and beastly. Her circumstances are made even worse by the proximity of Lord Ranulf s bailiff a revolting man who has made unwelcome advances on Annabel in the past. Believing that life in a nunnery is the best way to escape the escalation of the bailiff’s vile behavior and to preserve the faith that sustains her, Annabel is surprised to discover a sense of security and joy in her encounters with Lord Ranulf.

As Annabel struggles to confront her feelings, she is involved in a situation that could place Ranulf in grave danger. Ranulf’s future, and possibly his heart, may rest in her hands, and Annabel must decide whether to follow the plans she has cherished or the calling God has placed on her heart.

2.5 Drink Me Potions

I don’t even know where to begin this review. And I always have something to say when giving opinions on books. Please. It’s second nature to me. So this isn’t a good sign.

Annabel was a really sweet girl. Too sweet, in fact. Yes, she wanted to learn more and grow spiritually, although the priest back in her time did not think a woman should be doing such things. I want to be nice like her, but it was almost too much. She did what she was told and constantly worried about things. From worrying about not betraying her friend’s trust to working hard as a servant girl now to warding off men who couldn’t take “no” for an answer.

Fine, the last one is a reasonable thing to worry about, but still.

And besides being a really nice girl, she was beautiful. It was obvious from the way men kept coming after her. Or from the snide comments from the other maids employed in Ranulf’s household who were jealous. I mean, that’s great and all. But she was like PERFECTION. And almost seemed to have no backbone. I couldn’t connect with her very well.

As for Ranulf, he fit the ideal of Beast if anyone did. But I just did NOT like him. If it was written well, I would be able to at least sympathize with him and actually like him as the love interest. I just didn’t care for him much.

It may be the time difference (it was the Middle Ages after all) that most of these characteristics can be attributed to. Like, men could get away with doing whatever they wanted with a girl. Who’s gonna believe the word of a woman, huh? It still baffled me quite a bit why Dickerson had so many of the other maids try to seduce Lord Ranulf so they could get his title. I mean, sure, that happens in any century, but it seemed rather random and unnecessary to the plot. They thought he was ugly as crap. He was scorned and had terrible scars, literally, but still.

I’m gonna just cut this review short. Honestly, I don’t feel much for The Merchant’s Daughter. I did not enjoy it, but it wasn’t boring. That’s the distinction. Still readable, but not much feeling towards anything going on. This is apathy at its greatest.

Overall Recommendation:
Having read some of Dickeron’s other novels, The Merchant’s Daughter just didn’t compare. With a Beauty and the Beast theme, Annabel is given the choice to work in Ranulf’s place as punishment. He was definitely a beastly man, but that was all he is. I couldn’t empathize and it made liking him as the love interest hard. Annabel was a little too nice of a girl for my taste. I like my protagonists to have a bit more fight in them, to stand up for their passions, to feel something. How could I feel something for them if they don’t actually have strong feelings? I wouldn’t recommend this on your reading list unless you don’t mind these annoyances that just bugged me endlessly.

Review: The Princess Spy by Melanie Dickerson

October 5, 2015October 16, 2015 Andge @ Down the Rabbit Hole

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.

Review: Reign of Shadows by Sophie Jordan

September 19, 2015September 20, 2015 Andge @ Down the Rabbit Hole

Series: Reign of Shadows #1

Seventeen years ago, an eclipse cloaked the kingdom of Relhok in perpetual darkness. In the chaos, an evil chancellor murdered the king and queen and seized their throne. Luna, Relhok’s lost princess, has been hiding in a tower ever since. Luna’s survival depends on the world believing she is dead.

But that doesn’t stop Luna from wanting more. When she meets Fowler, a mysterious archer braving the woods outside her tower, Luna is drawn to him despite the risk. When the tower is attacked, Luna and Fowler escape together. But this world of darkness is more treacherous than Luna ever realized.

With every threat stacked against them, Luna and Fowler find solace in each other. But with secrets still unspoken between them, falling in love might be their most dangerous journey yet.

With lush writing and a star–crossed romance, Reign of Shadows is Sophie Jordan at her best.

3.5 Drink Me Potions

Thank you Edelweiss and HarperCollins for this copy in exchange for an honest review

**Reign of Shadows comes out February 9, 2016**

You think to yourself, here is a princess in a tower. Isolated in the middle of nowhere. Yearning for freedom. Doesn’t that sound a little familiar?

Uh, Rapunzel, anyone?

But oh no, that is where the only similarities start and stop.

Here is the setting of Reign of Shadows. On the day the princess was born (aka Luna), a deep darkness in the form of an eclipse settled on the land. And stayed there. Permanently.

In the midst of this, the kingdom was overthrown and Luna barely escaped unscathed to her little tower with two guardians. Now, after 17 years of almost total darkness, her world is shaken up by the arrival of….you guessed it. A boy. Or, young man I guess. Fowler’s too manly to be called a boy. At least, I think so from the REALLY detailed descriptions of his strong physique…

This isn’t my first Sophie Jordan book, but the storylines are so different that it almost feels like it is. She is still amazing at weaving together characters that seem real and tangible. Fowler is not a happy guy in the beginning. Being in a dog-eat-dog world, you learn to look out for yourself. Only the selfish survive, as he’d say.

Enter Luna. She’s an absolutely amazing character. I don’t REALLY want to ruin any surprise or anything, but she totally thrives in this world of darkness. She was born into it and therefore never knew what it was like to see with light. Her other senses are magnified which make her more capable in surviving these lands than most other people. I love that she can hold her own. She doesn’t require Fowler to save her everything. In fact, she saved him a couple times. She wasn’t a warrior or anything. Just an average girl who did what she had to for those she cared for. I can connect with her in that sense so much better than some kick-ass heroine, though those girls are great too.

Anyway, the romance and chemistry was almost tangible in the air. It wasn’t insta-love which I appreciated. Fowler was coming from a place where trust wasn’t earned so easily, so it wouldn’t make sense to feel anything too strong immediately. It had to build and grow into friendship and then into something more. Luna was good for him. Being locked in that tower protected her from the nastiness of the world. Yes, that might make her naive to the ugliness that humanity was, but it also made her hope more for a better outcome. And Fowler desperately needed that, in my opinion. Hope and love.

Although I loved the characters (the cast was really limited to those few small essential people), I can’t say the plot wasn’t dragging at times. They travelled. A lot.

Fought some night-adapted creatures called dwellers. And travelled some more. Fought some people more on the desperate and evil side. And, of course – you guessed it – they travelled some more.

So basically, the plot revolved around travelling and journeying towards some distant land for their various reasons, while trying to stay alive in the process from all the particular hazards. In the meantime, they fall in love (yay). That pretty much sums it up.

The world building wasn’t particularly strong in this first novel. It focused a lot on getting to know Luna and Fowler, and only peeking a little into Fowler’s backstory. I have some suspicions about certain elements of his backstory coming back to haunt him…but that may just be my overactive imagination. I am sure book 2 will open up a lot more of what evil darkness lives in the land and how to get rid of it.

The ending was a cliffhanger, and that was the only part where the story was potentially finally changing its course. Kinda sucks that I have to wait a long while before I can understand the hints that Jordan had slipped into Reign of Shadows.

However, this just means that the next novel is bound to get exciting from where this one left off. Hold on tight in this one. It’s a sweet, slow journey in acquainting ourselves with our dear protagonists. I don’t think it was badly prioritized, and I hope you would enjoy it too for what it is. I promise, the action will most definitely escalate later.

Overall Recommendation:
With a very small cast of characters, Reign of Shadows allows us to really get to know and love Luna and Fowler. Luna is a strong character who doesn’t let her “handicap” slow her down. Fowler is that bad boy who doesn’t trust anyone due to some tragic past, but the development of his character was realistic and sweet. Together, their journey towards a better land where there is freedom from danger truly highlights their chemistry, albeit lacking a little in the sense of adventure. All in all, it is a decent start to a series, and the ending hints for greater and more exciting things. At least you don’t have to wait as long as I do for the next installment.