Title: Arabesque
Author: Hayden Thorne
Genre: m/m fantasy
Print length: 233 pages
Publication date: February 22, 2011
Rating: Three Stars
Blurb: An ambitious young princess, Ulrike, turns to the dark arts in order to become queen despite her younger sister's warnings of a fatal consequence to mortgaging her soul. She succeeds, yet Ulrike finds herself trapped in a hateful marriage, her mind slowly being devoured by her powers, while conceiving and giving birth to a boy.
Alarick--"the bastard prince"--becomes the court's favorite object of mockery because of the scandal of his conception, his mother's spiraling madness compounding his ordeal. When Alarick falls in love with a childhood friend, Roald von Thiessen, the added sin of an unnatural romance gets caught up in a tumultuous aristocratic environment that's rife with hypocrisy, cruelty, betrayal, and murder.
Forcibly separated from each other during a bloody uprising, Roald and Alarick become helplessly ensnared in nightmarish adventures designed to twist their characters and destroy their minds in the process. The young lovers fight for their souls and a way back to each other in a world weighed down by the forces of dark and light magic, and gods grapple with each other over mortal destinies.
Review:
This book relied heavily on the already established fairy tales, so very little credit can be given for originality. It felt entirely too long, as if the writer was determined to cram as many of those fairy tales into one book as possible. It was unnecessary and it made it very easy to put the book down without finishing it. I did finish it but I got very little satisfaction from the ending because I felt exhausted by the sheer length and breadth of it. It stretched so far and wide that in some places, the story line barely held on by a thread. Some other parts felt entirely disconnected from the whole. Three stars for the effort, which was clearly put in. Also for the sheer size of it, which must have been quite the undertaking even if it did fall short of the mark.
Buy it from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Arabesque-ebook/dp/B004P1IY94/ref=cm_cr-mr-img
More titles by Hayden Thorne:
Title: Rose and Spindle
Author: Hayden Thorne
Genre: m/m fantasy
Print length: 286 pages
Publication date: November 18, 2012
Overall reviewer rating: Four Stars
Blurb: Boy meets boy. Boy hates boy. Each swears never to have anything to do with the other, forever after.
Unfortunately for Prince Hamlin and Prince Edouard, history has a bad habit of repeating itself, and worse, each time the two boys run across each other, things get a touch muddier as well. Destiny and free will go head-to-head, the princes’ dilemma echoing the more baffling curse that’s been placed on Edouard’s young cousin, Princess Roderika. Doomed to prick her finger on a spindle on her fifteenth birthday and fall asleep for a hundred years as a result, Roderika’s rapidly dwindling time becomes an inescapable tapestry into which Hamlin and Edouard’s own fates are woven.
With the help of a magician princess and a crotchety talking raven, Hamlin and Edouard not only have to outgrow prejudices, but also find the courage and the will to define their destinies, even if it were to take them a hundred years.
More titles by Hayden Thorne:
Title: Rose and Spindle
Author: Hayden Thorne
Genre: m/m fantasy
Print length: 286 pages
Publication date: November 18, 2012
Overall reviewer rating: Four Stars
Blurb: Boy meets boy. Boy hates boy. Each swears never to have anything to do with the other, forever after.
Unfortunately for Prince Hamlin and Prince Edouard, history has a bad habit of repeating itself, and worse, each time the two boys run across each other, things get a touch muddier as well. Destiny and free will go head-to-head, the princes’ dilemma echoing the more baffling curse that’s been placed on Edouard’s young cousin, Princess Roderika. Doomed to prick her finger on a spindle on her fifteenth birthday and fall asleep for a hundred years as a result, Roderika’s rapidly dwindling time becomes an inescapable tapestry into which Hamlin and Edouard’s own fates are woven.
With the help of a magician princess and a crotchety talking raven, Hamlin and Edouard not only have to outgrow prejudices, but also find the courage and the will to define their destinies, even if it were to take them a hundred years.
Review by Sophia Katherine Bailey:
I could explain how the twisted fairy tale trope works, but since the other reviewers have already done that, I'll just launch into what made the story both good and bad for me.
Good: I really enjoyed the fact that the two boys did not get on well in the beginning of the story. The whole enemies-turned-friends thing is enjoyable, as is the friends-to-lovers notion. Obviously, if you can put these together well, I'm a happy camper.
Bad: The enemies-turned-friends-turned-lovers relationship wasn't actually put together as well as I'd have liked. Their relationship progressed really slowly, and the leap between relationship statuses didn't really make sense the way it was done.
Good: The talking raven (I forget his name) was very entertaining, and just about stole the show.
Bad: the fairy tale aspect didn't seem necessary, as the "Sleeping Beauty" character was a secondary character. I began to wonder why I should even care about her anyway.
Overall, it was interesting enough to finish, but not good enough for a second go.
Good: I really enjoyed the fact that the two boys did not get on well in the beginning of the story. The whole enemies-turned-friends thing is enjoyable, as is the friends-to-lovers notion. Obviously, if you can put these together well, I'm a happy camper.
Bad: The enemies-turned-friends-turned-lovers relationship wasn't actually put together as well as I'd have liked. Their relationship progressed really slowly, and the leap between relationship statuses didn't really make sense the way it was done.
Good: The talking raven (I forget his name) was very entertaining, and just about stole the show.
Bad: the fairy tale aspect didn't seem necessary, as the "Sleeping Beauty" character was a secondary character. I began to wonder why I should even care about her anyway.
Overall, it was interesting enough to finish, but not good enough for a second go.
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