Melanie Cellier

Fantasy-land Taskmaster hell. I read retellings of The 12 Dancing Princesses whenever I can but this one was a chore to get through. The book was trying to do way too much at once and had a ton of logical inconsistencies imo. instead of having the 12 princesses be sisters they are a bunch of fairytale princesses (mostly disney ones) forced together under contrived circumstances. The princesses lack of common sense and self preservation in regards to the competition is infuriating. WHY DIDNT THEY WEAR PANTS? WHY DIDNT THEY PACK SUPPLIES? They learn on day one that they can get grievously hurt but take almost no precautions against further injury. My annoyance with the characters lack of common sense paired with their one dimensional personalities made reading a slog.

There were ok moments but overall I was not impressed. The romance was boring and uninspired and the politics nonsensical. The ending was predictable and rushed and there were far too many characters to keep track of.… (more)

This book is a companion book to the spoken mage series, but it has the missing event that had been established in the Hidden Mage series (that I had read before and tell the story of Elena's daughter).

The story in itself is about as good as the previous ones, but is told from multiple POVs, with Saffron and Julien alternating as the narrator. The problem is that their inner dialogue is very similar, they keep talking to eachother and the same 4 or 5 characters for most of the book, and it comes confusing,… (more)

I received the first four books in this series as a gift and have been really looking forward to reading them. First off, how gorgeous is this cover!!!
So the book started off a bit slow and I was a bit thrown off because it felt like it was taking place in a historical setting but the characters were using some modern language. I had to remind myself that this is not a historical fiction but a fantasy book.
Then I really started enjoying it. I really liked Alyssa's character and I liked that she was honest about things. Some of the situations I thought were going to be misunderstandings that got her in trouble but she was honest and so it didn't turn into a big thing which I liked.
There was romance but I thought that it was done well and didn't take over the story.
I'm really looking forward to the rest of the series.
This was a clean book with no language and although there is a bit of violence none of it was graphic. There is also a bit of kissing.… (more)

I'm really enjoying this series and I love how all the books and characters are interconnected in this world. I thought this author had a really unique take on the Sleeping Beauty story and I quite enjoyed it. There is danger and intrigue and adventure and a bit of romance as well. It was a really enjoyable book and I read it really quickly.
As in the other books there is some violence and there is also some magic in this book though not as much as in the princess pact. No language and some light romance.… (more)