Title: Enchanted
Author: Alethea Kontis
Format: Hardback
Year Published: 2013
Sunday Woodcutter is the seventh daughter (of a seventh daughter and a seventh son). Often overlooked in her loud and bustling family, Sunday finds solace in the Woods and in writing down the past – because what she writes down has a tendency to come true. In the Woods, Sunday meets an enchanted frog, and falls in love.
One night, her goodbye kiss turns her beloved frog back into a Prince – unfortunately, the Prince her whole family despises for his connection to the death of the oldest Woodcutter son (Jack). Now the Prince must win the heart of Sunday as a human and must unravel the dark secrets of his family at the same time.
This story pretty much hit my sweet spot when it comes to stories – third-person (yay!), quirky but loveable characters, and fairy-tale retellings. (The only thing it was missing was the crotchety character with a heart of gold, but you can’t win everything.)
Reading the author’s notes after indicate that she took a challenge to incorporate as many fairy-tales into her novel as possible, and unfortunately they don’t mesh as well as could be hoped. Several times the scenes jump from one to another without a bridge, and they never get fully resolved, and other times they’re just mentioned for no reason other than to put the fairy-tale in. The book would have been better served with a tighter focus on a smaller group of them.
Sunday’s story is the core of the book, as each of the other fairy-tales relate or come up in a way that relates to her story, and while I’m not a fan of falling in love over three days (and actually, upon first-read of the book I thought that she and the frog had spent *far* more time than that), the love story is sweet.
The story has its pacing problems, but for the most part flows evenly, and I loved all of Sunday’s family. Easily read, and easily enjoyed.
3.5/5 stars
Objects in Motion 