Once Upon a Twist on an Old Fairy Tale

  A fter reading The Rose and the Briar I was very excited to read more of J. M. Stengl’s  Faraway Castle books.  And  man,  it did not disappoint.  This Little Mermaid retelling was fabulous.  It tells the story of a siren named  Kamoana  who is suddenly  changed into a human with  some of  her memories  erased .  Kamoana  soon lea rn s  her mother is testing her, for if she can get a true loves kiss from the  man,  she loves then she can be with him.  However,  he doesn’t have any memories of her  either, which is a big problem .  How is  Kamoana  going to accomplish this in so short a time? And it doesn’t help that a prince named Mike keeps hitting on her when she has zero interest in him.  At first  Kamoana  considers giving up and agreeing to whatever her mother wishes. But she also knows that  since   she agreed to the test then whoever t...

T his was the first book by J.M. Stengl that I  had   read,  and I must say it was  pretty  good. The book puts a twist on the classic Sleeping Beauty story by making the princess extremely wicked, dangerous, and manipulative. Blessed by fairies to be not only be very beautiful but also to have the ability to easily persuade  anyone to do her  bidding,   the evil princess could have  conquered  the world.   However,  the fourth fairy at her  birth,  fearful the princess would become a  tyrant,  cursed  Zafira  in to an enchanted sleep just like in the original tale. She can only be woken by a  prince's  kiss.  A hundred years later Zafira is still asleep and is secretly taken care of by  Rosa,  a gardener at  Faraway   Castle,  a resort for royalty.  Rosa  inherited the job of taking care of her from her mother  when she died. But combing ...

Out of all the fairy tales out  there  Beauty and the Beast is my  all-time  favorite. I have read so many retellings of  this tale  and have  enjoyed my time reading  most of them. But sometimes there comes a retelling that isn’t as good as the others . It’s not a bad book by any means but it's not a fantastic one either.  Midnight For  A  Curse  f its that description well. It’s a very lighthearted book that while at times amusing, can get tiresome after a while . There was action in the  book,  but it was vastly overshadowed by its goofy tone.  However,  Midnight  For   A  Curse does put  an  interesting twist to its Gaston  character. There are two  of them !  And one is a  woman  who wants the beast (or rather  the  prince) for  herself,  and  both a re ready to play dirty to get what they want.      The book begin...