REVIEW: THE PRINCESS CURSE by MERRIE HASKELL

 

  

Fairy tales were the fuel that fed my childhood imagination and put me on the path to be an avid consumer of books. In this debut novel Merrie takes all the wonderful elements of your favorite fairy tales and imbues them with a unique twist and a wonderful female lead. Young Reveka is 13 and obsessed with the cursed princesses. There are twelve of them, all half sisiters of a kingdom that has failed to produce an heir and needs strong political marriages to keep them safe.

However this proves impossible as the sisters are under a strange curse that leaves them exhausted in the morning with their shoes torn to shreds. Those that get close to the princess get infected with a strange sleeping disease. Reveka however is not intimidated! She has a plan: cure the princesses and use the reward to buy her way into a nunnery and spend her remaining days as a herbalist.

Reveka is a joy to read.I loved everything about her. She finds a way to follow the sisters and discovers that they are the architects of their own curse. She discovers their captor is a zmeu a fearsome dragon like beast. To save her father and the young girls she makes a choice that severs her completely from the world above.

Now mistress of an underworld kingdom she uses her herbalists skill to bring new life to a kingdom that thrives on death and decay.

A magical adventure with a wonderful sweetness between Reveka and Dragos. Only her innocence can see through the monstrous visage others cringe from. Such a wonderful read, I really like when a book leaves you wanting to stay in the narrative world ,while wrapping up the main story elements .