The Princess Pact: A Twist on Rumpelstiltskin by Melanie Cellier Review

Rumpelstiltskin is such an odd fairy tale. The plot is just strange to me which is why I am always curious to see how authors will retell this story. They can answer questions such as why did Rumpelstiltskin want the queen's child? What would he have done with the baby? How could he spin straw into gold? Why didn't the greedy king ask his wife to spin more gold after they were married? Why did he even believe the poor millers false claims in the first place? These are just a few of the questions the tale of Rumpelstiltskin brings, and this retelling does a good job of answering most of them. 

The Princess Pact is the story of Princess Marie who had appeared in The Princess Companion as a friend and ally to Alyssa. She is also known to not have the beauty most princesses known for. She finds out the reason to this in the beginning of the book. It turns out she is adopted. When the queen (formally the miller's daughter) made her deal with the strange little man he didn't ask to take her child he ask her to raise his own. He would one day come back for her but if she could guess his name before he came to claim her, she could keep her. The king and queen who love Marie have long since searched for the little man's name but with no luck. And now the little man has returned going under the name R and has started forming a group of rebels with a plan to dethrone the king and queen. Feeling betrayed that her adoptive family never told her the truth Marie secretly sets out to the rebel camp with two goals in mind. To find her missing adoptive brother Prince Willaim and also meet her real father. She joins the rebels with the help of Rafe a charming man who is spying on the rebels for the king and soon makes new friends and enemies at the camp. But when she learns of her birth father (who goes by the initial R) intentions for the rebellion she will have to make a tough choice. Should she join him and his rebels in dethroning her adoptive parents and claim the throne R claims belongs to them? Or will she choose to side with the family that who lovingly raised her and save the kingdom from war?

This is a good story that deals with themes of a person finding their place in the world. Marie feels angry and betrayed by her adoptive family in the beginning for not revealing the truth to her. She beings to wonder if place she belongs is by her birth father R. But over the course of her journey, she evaluates her both her sets of parent's intentions and actions and realizes which side she wants to be on. I like the message that where we come from shouldn't dictate our actions. We must do what we believe is right and not be shackled down by the past. It's a good message to learn from.

Marie is a great character whose journey I enjoyed following. While I wasn't as invested in her as I was with Ava story, I was still on eager to see how everything would play out. However, it did drive me a little crazy as how long it took for Marie to come up with her decision. It was obvious to me which family was using her for their own gain from the start and it took a little too long for Marie to realize this. However, once she did, I liked her character a lot more. It felt good to see her become more self-reassured knowing that the family she chose to belong to was the right one.

Rafe is a very charming love interest and I really enjoyed seeing his and Marie's relationship grow. He is a popular figure among the other rebels, especially among the women. While he is not a flirt, he is still quite the charmer, and I could see why Marie fell for him. He is also very protective of Marie but not in a jealous way like Prince Max was in The Princess Companion. He is worried for her safety and will even physically fight off an enemy to keep her safe. All in all, their relationship is really quite cute and sweet.

I will not reveal the main villain of this story, (even if it's probably obvious who it is) but I will say he is a very big threat. He has a magical artifact previously seen in the novella Happily Ever Afters that has the power to brainwash people making them easy to bend to his will. This makes him even more dangerous than most of the previous villains who used manipulation and cunning to get what they wanted and not magic. His backstory while not overly explored is based off another fairy tale (The Water of Life) which the author interwove into the narrative in a clever and interesting way. 

I also want to mention is that this book is much similar to its origin source than some of the previous books in this series have been to theirs. The greedy king from the original is now Marie's adoptive grandfather who only order his daughter-in-law to spin straw into gold to teach her father a lesson. He didn't expect her to actually do it and he wasn't going to punish her for her father's thoughtlessness. She didn't know this however which is what led her to make her bargain with R in the first place. And when the gold was made the king married her to his son and didn't make her spin more since he feared that gold would lose it value if she made more. Marie's adoptive father the current king also ends up learning the truth from his wife but still comes to genuinely love her and not because he believes some lie. I liked this twist on the tale since it answers some of the questions I always had about the original.

Overall, this is a very good and enjoyable retelling of Rumpelstiltskin that I recommend. While The Princess Fugitive is still my favorite this book is a good read and completely deserves four out of five stars. Until next time. E.V.A.