Alethea Kontis: "Then quit dwelling on other people's stories and make up some of your own."

I described this book to one of my friends as "The Frog Prince on steroids." Interestingly, it could also be described as "Cinderella on steroids" or "Jack & the Beanstalk on steroids" or many other fairy tales on steroids. You see, Enchanted by Alethea Kontis (Amazon) is one of those books that is the result of taking a bunch of fairy tales and mashing them together until a brand new story comes out. I tend to like those sorts of books. If you don't, then stay away!

The story is about Sunday Woodcutter, youngest of seven sisters (yes, they're all named after days of the week), daughter to the youngest of seven sisters and youngest of seven sons. Such a huge amount of sevens can only mean one thing: Sunday is magical and fated to greatness. However, all she knows is that she's fated to be "blithe and bonny and good and gay," for all of her sisters have followed the Monday's Child nursery rhyme predictions (Wikipedia, for if you're unaware of the rhyme). One day, Sunday meets a frog in the woods, and from then on her life is never quite the same.

Definitely a fun little tale, though not especially complex. There were a few parts I found confusing-it seemed like characters found out the same information twice, needlessly. However, overall I completely enjoyed myself. Plus, it's a another book with a pretty dress on the cover (my second in two posts!). Who could resist?

Alethea Kontis has a small form available on her website, so I wrote her a quick note:

"I just finished reading "Enchanted" and I wanted to let you know that I really enjoyed it! I have a soft spot for reinvented fairy tales, making your book a really fun read for me.

Good luck with your future writing!"

I have lots more books to read, so hopefully there will be another post soon!