A Sleeping Beauty retelling, The Rose Princess shows us the possibilities of what would have happened if the original Sleeping Beauty were a fantasy.
The romance between our two main characters, Talia and Caradoc throughout the story is built on things that started from childhood, the romantic aspects of their already formed friendship blooming throughout the book.
Book: The Rose Princess by Ivy Hollins
Series: Fairy Tales of Parsilon #1
Publication Date: November 11, 2019
(Thank you BookSirens for this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review)
**While this book has already been out I did receive it early so thank you again BookSirens!**
Tags: Young Adult, fantasy, romance, fairytale retelling
Links: Goodreads | Ebook | Paperback | Hardback | Audio
Read: September 5, 2020 to September 9, 2020
In a kingdom of fairies and dragons, Talia is reassuringly normal… until she isn’t. Plucked from her quiet town and thrust into a life as heir to the throne, and betrothed to a powerful duke, she must face up to a terrifying question: what if the curse is real? What if she really is destined to be trapped in eternal sleep?
Duke Caradoc has spent his whole life dominated by his mother, the fierce Duchess of the Northern Wastes. But when he meets Talia, betrothed to him since childhood, he knows that his mother’s lust for power has gone too far. The curse must be stopped… and the answer might lie in Caradoc and Talia’s mysterious dreams.
A Sleeping Beauty retelling, first in a series of fairytale-inspired fantasy romances.
A Sleeping Beauty retelling, The Rose Princess shows us the possibilities of what would have happened if the original Sleeping Beauty were a fantasy.
The romance between our two main characters, Talia and Caradoc throughout the story is built on things that started from childhood, the romantic aspects of their already formed friendship blooming throughout the book. But what they both don’t know is who they’ve made friends with and the moment they realize who each other are, their love blossoms and becomes something deeper.
I gave The Rose Princess three stars feeling the lack of build-up between the plot and characters. I love retellings but I feel like this book could have done a better job when it came to retelling a fantasy Sleeping Beauty. The plot felt rushed and sometimes we’d find time jobs with so much detail but we were never able to read about those details. And the romance between Caradoc and Talia felt sudden. We were given the notion that they were able to see each other in dreams but never know the identity and were told that it started recently but found out it started when they were children which left me confused.
And the romance was not what I was expecting. It didn’t leave me wanting more out of their relationship like I would want it to. Even for books with a plot heavy focus and romance is just a subplot, the romance in this book seemed like a minuscule detail that was only put in for a reminder that this was a fantasy romance.
This book definitely felt rushed but there were definitely a few cute moments between Talia and Caradoc that I did enjoy.
Overall, The Rose Princess could have been a lot more developed and with more detail.
Thank you again to BookSirens for providing me an ARC in exchange for an honest review
I hope you guys have a great day, please like and comment down below if you enjoyed this book as well or if you plan on reading it!
Loves,
Veronica Chen