The Sorcerer and the Swan Princess by Lucy Tempest Review

Recently my family was struck by tragedy with the death of one of my grandmothers. During her life she was a dance critic and throughout her career she has watched many ballets. One of those ballets was Swan Lake which is also a particular favorite of mine. To honor her memory, I attempted to read five different retellings of Swan Lake within a month. Sadly, I only got to read three due to my busy school schedule. I was originally going to write about K. M. Shea's Swan Lake first but after having written three reviews for the Villains Ever After series I decided to go with this one. I had heard of the author Lucy Tempest for a while and am excited to read her Fairy Tales of Folkshore series sooner than later. It should also be mentioned that although The Sorcerer and the Swan Princess is part of the Villains Ever After series it is set in the same world as the Fairy Tales of Folkshore making it part of two series. Due to this fact there are small references to the previous book such as the Cahraman desert from the Aladdin trilogy.  

The book begins with Princess Ava trying to do ballet but failing due to her long-time injured ankle. Later she attends the ball made in her honor where she is reintroduced to Prince Seigfreid who is there to court since his father declared his younger brother to be the new heir. Ava believes herself to be in love with him, but the night comes to a screeching halt when she is betrayed by her twin sister Lina, transformed into a swan by a sorcerer, and kidnapped. When Ava awakes, she finds herself returned to her human form but far away from her castle and her prince and in the hands of the infamous sorcerer Dietrich Rothbart. Brought to an old castle that is secretly a school with Dietrich as its headmaster Ava wants nothing more but to escape. Refusing at first to believe her sister is so cruel even though she is now pretending to be her, Ava is almost able to escape only to discover the saddening truth. Lina wants her dead and her prince has no clue that he is courting a fake proving he never loved her. When she is saved by Dietrich from certain death the two begin to share more about their past with each other and soon love blossoms between the two. However, Lina will do anything to get rid of Ava, putting not only her at risk but the magic school as well. Will Ava ever get to go home and reveal the truth about her wicked sister? If so, can her newfound romance last with Dietrich? Or will it fade away forever? 

This was an enjoyable book. It is true it took a little while for me to get into at first, but I kept reading and it turned out to be great. I found it interesting that Ava enjoys ballet which is a nice nod to the origin of the story. Another little fact I thought I enjoyed was that the Odette and Odile characters (Ava and Lina) were twin sisters, and that Lina wore black clothes (another tribute to the ballet.) I was a little surprised that Ava only turned into a full swan twice in the book rather than being a swan by day and human by night, but this worked better with the plot. I was also a little annoyed at first that Siegfreid was a villain since in the ballet he is far from one. But to make a good retelling an author must make changes and sometimes that means reversing roles for certain characters. If they did not change certain aspects of their book from the original source, it would just be the same story. Anyway, this book was a good retelling of Swan Lake, and I gave it four out of five stars. Until next time E.V.A.