Thursday, July 9, 2015

The Night Dance

Title: The Night Dance
Author: Suzanne Weyn
Series: Once Upon a Time
Number of Pages: 193
Date Read: 7/9/15
Genre: Fairy Tale Retellings

Synopsis (Found on Goodreads.com):

Under the stars, in a secret world…

Rowena, the youngest of twelve sisters, loves to slip out of the castle at night and dance in a magical forest. Soon she convinces her sisters to join her. When Sir Ethan notices that his daughters' slippers look tattered every morning, he is certain they've been sneaking out. So he posts a challenge to all the suitors in the kingdom: The first man to discover where his daughters have been is free to marry the one he chooses.

Meanwhile a handsome young knight named Bedivere is involved in a challenge of his own: to return the powerful sword, Excalibur, to a mysterious lake. While looking for the lake, Bedivere meets the beautiful Rowena and falls for her. Bedivere knows that accepting Sir Ethan's challenge is the only opportunity for him to be with Rowena forever. But this puts both Bedivere and Rowena in a dangerous situation…one in which they risk their lives for a chance at love.

My Review:

This was a cute version of the Twelve Dancing Princesses fairytale.

In this book each chapter is told in a different character's point of view. The main characters are Rowena, the youngest of the twelve sisters and Sir Bedivere, one of King Arthur's knights of the round table. 

What I liked a lot about this book is that the story takes part of the original tale and adds elements of the King Arthur legends into it. Sir Bedivere is the last night of the round table, the lady of the lake and Morgan le Fay are characters, Merlin is mentioned, and the book includes the last battle and death of King Arthur against Mordred. I thought that was such a cool idea to infuse these two tales together and I enjoyed reading it. 

I liked Rowena. She was a fiery girl who longed to be outside the walls her father built to keep his 12 daughters inside. She enjoys exploring the forest when she finds a way out of the walls and she also has some magical power. She falls instantly in love (this is the only kind of insta love I can tolerate because it's a fairy tale book) with Sir Bedivere. I also liked Sir Bedivere a lot as well. He is a very honorable man and keeps up with his knightly code of conduct even after Arthur and all the other knight's deaths. He made a promise to Arthur before he died to return excalibur to the lady of the lake for him and he holds himself to that promise no matter what. He also falls instantly in love with Rowena. 

Aside from the Arthurian elements the story follows the fairytale of the twelve dancing princesses pretty closely. The only thing I can think of off the top of my head is that instead of a king the sister's father is a knight, so they aren't princesses. But they're still pretty high in rank. 

I enjoy this fairytale series because they are cute quick little reads.


Rating: B

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