After my time being filled with job hunts and changing careers, I found a day job that allowed me to read while at my desk! And this has allowed me to finally read all of the wonderful books that I have purchased from friends at conventions, or been gifted by loved ones. So, I’m going to start posting reviews of the books I read! (Unfortunately, there were some layoffs at this wonderful job, and I was the newest receptionist, so I am once again on the hunt for full-time employment.)
This is something I’ve wanted to do for quite some time, so I hope you enjoy! This particular review does include spoilers! I will leave a warning when we hit spoiler territory, so it’s safe to read until that point. 🙂
The first book is Thrice-Cursed Thrice-Blessed by Els Curtis. I met Els and bought her book at LTUE a few years ago, when my family’s table was next to hers in the vendors hall. And I can’t believe it took me so long to read this gem! The story flows beautifully, and the characters are all wonderfully fleshed out. I fell in love with the two main leads, Princess Jory and Prince V’ren, immediately. If you love Patricia Wrede’s Princess Cimorene, you will absolutely adore Jory. She is every bit as independent and lovable as ever a princess could be, and she is clever, to boot! And while cursed V’ren is raised not knowing his birthright, he has a loving found family (and a wonderful biological father!) who raise him with warmth and strength. And boy does he need the strength- monsters of all sorts can sense that the boy is moon-cursed, so they all want to eat him. By the time V’ren is sixteen, he’s so used to it that it no longer phases him. He simply fights whatever has kidnapped him this time, and goes about his business.
The book alternates chapters between these two, and both sides of the story are equally enthralling- especially when a Faerie gets involved! And then there’s the sidekicks! Because every Princess needs an animal sidekick, right? Well, Jory gets Frog, a grumpy frog who offers to rescue her golden ball from the pond, only for Jory to get it herself! She takes in the perturbed amphibian, letting him eat off of her plate and sleep on her pillow, and pampers him endlessly. She even insists on building an artificial pond in her rooms for her pet. And Frog regularly banters with her, telling her how foolish and stubborn she is, and even cussing her out in the kingdom’s commoner dialect. And Jory loves him all the more for it!
Meanwhile, V’ren coerces a pair of wizards-pretending-to-be-inventors into helping him reclaim his father’s kingdom, both of whom are named Hans. Blue Hans and Yellow Hans are the Pain and Panic to V’ren’s Hades, though the three are very much not Bad Guys. They are hilarious in their constant banter, and it never gets old. This is the kind of naturally-flowing dialogue that I live for, people. It is amazing, how effortlessly Els’ characters converse with one another. None of the dialogue is stilted, or out of place.
And now, we get into spoiler territory, so if you want to be as surprised as I was at the mid-book twist, this is where you should stop reading. Go on Amazon and buy yourself a copy of Thrice-Cursed Thrice-Blessed right now. If you love fantasy and twisted fairy tales, you will have no regrets.
When I got a decent way into this book, I was loving it. Jory has a suitor, Prince Talithor, who is the absolutely best Prince Charming ever. He goes questing, set to complete three tasks for her hand in marriage. But Jory is as stubborn as they come, and she is not ready to get married. So, in spite of Frog’s protests and insistence that her books about magical creatures are all wrong, Jory goes out to complete the quests herself, before Talithor can get to them. And y’all, it is a RIDE. Jory not only completes the tasks, defeating terrifying monsters, she does so completely peacefully! No bloodshed, no death, no violence. She just uses her wits and her kindness. And along the way, she learns just how bad off her kingdom is under her father’s rule. See, Jory doesn’t know it, but her father usurped the kingdom from V’ren’s father, and the kingdom hasn’t prospered since. She sees the magical creatures being harvested for their medicinal properties, and she hurts for them. She sees the people starving, and she aches to help. So she does, in the only way she knows how: by being a good princess. And completing these quests is taking care of her people, which is a princess’s duty. Even after almost getting eaten, and learning that Frog really does know magical creatures better than the books, Jory takes on as many of the quests as she can. All while foiling other would-be suitors, because she will only marry someone good for the kingdom. And Talithor isn’t giving up. Jory gets a reputation as the Silent Knight, and gets found out. We readers know that V’ren is on his way to the castle, and he and Jory are both good people trying to fix things, so I’m thinking “maybe she’ll marry V’ren!” They’re both pretty stubborn, so it’d be fun to see them match wits. And we learn along the way that Frog is, unsurprisingly, a man who’s been bespelled. I’m a sucker for cute romance stories, so I just know that these are the three with enough potential to be Jory’s true love.
That is when I hit the halfway point in the book, and got the most pleasantly unexpected twist! And, I promise it’s not a brag, I am fairly good at figuring out potential plot twists. (I’ve been reading voraciously my whole life, after all.) So to be so completely thrown was wonderful, friends. I had not been so surprised by a book in a long time, folks.
The meddling Faerie turns V’ren into a frog! It took me a few minutes of delighted surprise, and a lot of “what??”s before I was able to continue. I think I actually laughed out loud at work. And then, as expected after such a revelation, V’ren makes his way to the nearest princess to turn him back into a man–Jory. He must eat off her plate, sleep on her pillow, and fulfil one request from her. I could not stop laughing. I knew then why Frog was always so grumpy, and how he knew so much about monsters. It was V’ren, unwilling to admit his name and cause for being there, because he grew attached to the princess whose father he came to kill. It is the most delightful irony, and the Hanses delight in mocking him for it. It’s beautiful. Watching the stubborn prince-turned-frog trying to get the stubborn and independent princess to let him do even the littlest thing for her is hilarious. And she has no idea, which makes it even better. And this is also when I learned that the alternating viewpoints were not happening simultaneously, like I’d thought they were. Best surprise I’d gotten from a book in a LONG time.
By the climax, I was so invested that I cried when Jory was found out as the Silent Knight. And I cried even harder when she sent Frog away, to keep him safe. Worst of all, she was going to be forced to marry an evil creep. Not even Talithor, who tried so hard! No, some creepy Black Knight who, surprise surprise, is the son of an evil wizard who tried to take the kingdom by force several times in the past, but was defeated by Jory earlier in the story. But the book wasn’t over yet, so I was on the edge of my seat, praying that things would work out!
And literally at the last second, right as Jory is at the altar to marry the BBEG, V’ren manages to break the frog enchantment. How? Jory told him to “leave and be happy”. She made a request of him. But he wasn’t about to leave her. He realized that he was happy with her, and will only be happy if she is. So he busts into the wedding hall, buck naked and ready to rescue his princess, at the same moment that Jory decides she can’t let her kingdom fall to ruin under this monster her father told her to marry. The hall is chaos, and all of these little things that happened throughout the book come together to tie everything together perfectly. A sphinx even breaks in through the ceiling, like the Dragon from Shrek, and sits on the BBEG. It’s amazing. And after everything has calmed down, and Jory is queen, she must be wondering “who is this V’ren guy? Where did he come from? Why did he crash my wedding in the nude?” And she does, at first. Then he says something that makes her literally trip, and she realizes that he’s Frog. And she says NOTHING. For DAYS. She just waits for him to say it, and he’s thinking she’ll hate him. So when he finally goes to tell her how he feels, she’s like “I know you’re Frog. Marry me.” And he gets so flustered that she won’t even let him propose, and it’s wonderful! I was so delighted that I was cackling.
I love happy endings, and this one is excellent. Magic is restored to the kingdom, the people are saved, and the Prince and Princess have found True Love. Happily ever after! The only downside is that there is no sequel, not even about other characters in this world. I adore this book so much, I couldn’t put it down. And I hope that Els writes more stories in this beautiful, magical realm. Not only because it’s beautifully crafted, but because she tells wonderful stories.
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