Cheryl Mahoney

This companion novel to The Wanderers centers around storytelling princess Lyra and her eleven sisters. All their lives, the twelve princesses have known about the enchanted forest beneath their father's castle. The forest's trees have silver, gold, and diamond branches, enough wealth to buy their kingdom many times over. But the enchantment is an evil one, corrupting anyone not strong enough to resist its whispers of wealth at any cost -- including their father. The king insists that his daughters have the power to access the forest, but Lyra and her sisters steadily resist. Eventually, however, they do enter the forest and find something unexpected: twelve princes who need the girls' help to break a curse on their faraway kingdom. But when the king suspects that his daughters have entered the forest without him, he claims the girls themselves are cursed and offers a reward to any champion who can break the "curse." Will Lyra and her sisters be able to save the princes before the king discovers what they're up to and puts a stop to it for good?

I liked this book, which is a well-told but not particularly original retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses. Not every character is well developed -- several princesses and their corresponding princes aren't in the story at all, apart from a brief mention of their names -- but Lyra and her prince, Dastan, are pretty three-dimensional. Lyra at first defines herself solely as "the sister who like stories," but she eventually comes to realize that she is unique in other ways, too. The romance was cute, and I liked that Lyra is torn between her love for Dastan and her desire to be independent. As I mentioned above, this novel is a companion to The Wanderers; if you've read that book, you'll remember Jasper and Julie's involvement with this story, but you won't be missing anything if you haven't read it. I found the writing style of this book a little clumsy and choppy at first, but as I got further into the story, I didn't notice the prose as much. I would recommend this book to fairytale lovers, especially those who don't mind reading books geared toward the younger end of the YA spectrum.… (altro)

Jasper is a wandering adventurer-for-hire, fighting monsters and rescuing damsels in distress -- for a fee. He stays in one place just long enough to collect his reward; he never sticks around for the happily-ever-after part. He doesn't want any emotional entanglements, and he's got a whole list of Rules to keep him suitably detached. But when a seemingly ordinary battle against an evil magician introduces Jasper to a talking cat, he finds himself breaking Rule 18 (always travel alone) and making a friend in the process. Things get even more complicated when one of the damsels Jasper rescues demands to join him on his adventures. Julie is determined, thirsty for adventure, and desperately afraid of her (literal) witch of a mother. As Jasper, Julie, and Tom the cat continue to travel in search of wrongs to right, Jasper finds it harder and harder to follow the Rules. Will this unlikley team be able to conquer their personal monsters and find their way to their own happy ending?

This is the debut novel of a blogger I follow, Cheryl Mahoney at Tales of the Marvelous. It's always a little nerve-wracking to read a book by someone you know -- even someone you only know on the Internet -- but I'm happy to say that I found this book absolutely delightful! I loved Jasper as a protagonist, with his stubborn practicality and his long list of Rules. I like that he's brave but not foolhardy; he knows that walking away from a fight you can't win is sometimes the best choice. Julie is also a wonderful character, strong and capable but also legitimately fearful of her mother's evil magic. Since she's not invincibly tough all the time, I found her more relatable than many fantasy heroines. I also loved the world of this novel, which operates on fairytale-esque principles, but with some interesting twists. For example, third sons are normally fated to succeed on quests, but sometimes the son in question doesn't quite have what it takes to get things done. Then there are the Good Fairies, who are actually much more dangerous than Bad Fairies when crossed. Ultimately, all I can say is that I finished this novel with a huge smile on my face. I would definitely recommend it to fans of this genre!… (altro)