Red Hood’s Revenge by Jim C. Hines is the third book in his Princess series that is based on fairy tales. In this outing Red Riding Hood is a dangerous assassin and her target is Talia, also known as Sleeping Beauty. The three princesses, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and Cinderella travel to the desert land of Arathea after making a difficult alliance with Red Hood. Arathea is Sleeping Beauty’s original home and the place where they will find the originator of the contract on Sleeping Beauty.

With plenty of magic and swordplay, the story unfolds as it also gives us a lot more information on Sleeping Beauty and how she ended up alone and exiled from her country. The author relies less on humor and more upon character development in this outing and I enjoyed the fact that he doesn’t just simply rework the fairy tale, he sends us in a completely new direction with these familiar characters. These princesses resemble Charlie’s Angels more than the Disney tropes that we are used to.

I was in the mood for a light yet exciting story and that is exactly what I got with Red Hood’s Revenge. There is one more book in the series and I am looking forward to it already. ( )

Each successive book in this series is better than the last. In this one, Hines delves into Talia's backstory and we get further glimpses into the different cultures that exist in this world he's created. The characterization in these books are fantastic and the plotting is fast and engrossing. I completely missed my stop on the train one morning because I completely lost track of everything around me as I was reading. ( )

3.25 stars

Roudette (aka Red Riding Hood) is an assassin who is coming after Talia (Sleeping Beauty), a princess of Arathea who has been exiled and is living in a neighbouring country with Danielle (Cinderella) and Snow (White).

There is a lot of fighting in this series. Yeah, kick-ass princesses are fun, but I have to admit, I tend to skim some of the fighting scenes. I briefly considered giving up on the series, but with only one book left, I think I might as well finish it off. I keep waffling between feeling like I liked it (3.5 stars) and feeling like it was ok (3 stars). ( )

I started this hoping Red would join Danielle, Talia and Snow on some big adventure. She did, just not in the way I was hoping. That didn't spoil my enjoyment of the book. This one is probably my favorite, although the second book did have mermaids. ( )

I liked the plot of this book, and the range of female characters was spectacular. But it was draggy. I found myself skimming slower portions. ( )