I was so angry through most of this book that it’s good I wasn’t driving or I’m sure there would have been serious road rage on my part. Honestly the author did such a fabulous job of “authoring” and the narrator did a wonderful job of helping her flesh out the characters that half the time I wanted to pull the protagonist turned antagonist straight from the proverbial pages and slam her on the table! Okay it was all the characters at one time or another. The water recedes, my hope is back and I think maybe 🤔 we can make it. By the end I’m so immersed I stop breathing until I realize there’s a second book on the horizon. There are moments of reprieve but those are far and few between. Then the abuse begins and you’re starting to piss me off. One moment we’re going through the “nice to meet you and learn more about you” phase and you sound a little beaten down and here let me help you carry your baggage to the “meet and greet the friends and family” and now I know why you’re so messed up but you still have that je ne sais quois about you. I almost feel like I’m in an abusive relationship with it. This is a very complex and emotionally challenging book. First let me start with, yes I can’t wait for the next book. I don’t even know where to begin with this review. Because we all know how this story ends, don’t we? Aurora is the beautiful princess. Perhaps together we could forge a new world. If my power began her curse, perhaps it’s what can lift it. Even though a power like mine was responsible for her curse.īut with less than a year until that curse will kill her, any future I might see with Aurora is swiftly disintegrating - and she can’t stand to kiss yet another insipid prince. Aurora says I should be proud of my gifts. Humiliated and shamed by the same nobles who pay me to bottle hexes and then brand me a monster.

One who isn’t bothered that I am Alyce, the Dark Grace, abhorred and feared for the mysterious dark magic that runs in my veins. Not the way they care about their jewels and elaborate parties and charm-granting elixirs.

Let me tell you, no one in Briar actually cares about what happens to its princesses. You’ve heard this before, haven’t you? The handsome prince. A curse that could only be broken by true love’s kiss. Once upon a time, there was a wicked fairy who, in an act of vengeance, cursed a line of princesses to die. “Walter’s spellbinding debut is for all the queer girls and women who’ve been told to keep their gifts hidden and for those yearning to defy gravity.” ( O: The Oprah Magazine )

But in this “bewitching and fascinating” (Tamora Pierce) retelling of “Sleeping Beauty”, true love is more than a simple fairy tale. A princess isn’t supposed to fall for an evil sorceress.

Heather walter malice book 2