Author submission in exchange for an honest review.
Title:
Faeries Forever
Author:
Ellen Margret
Release Date:
January 2011
Publisher:
Melange Books, LLC
Word Count:
approx 76,000
Purchase Links:
Author's Website:
Description:
A male human and a female faery, swapped at birth. Hawke and Owletta were destined to be united. Their love would save a dying land.
Alconia
It wasn't love at first sight. Princess Alconia despised Richard, but in faery land, anything can happen. Love blossoms with a bit of faery dust.
Cyana
With the faery realm facing annihilation, Eben had to act, especially since Cyana, the faery whose heart he broke, was now mother to his son.
Feemotha
Can a banished faery witch and a human doctor find love? As they strive to protect the faerwitch’s daughter, Chris and Feemotha do just that.
Flavia
Implicated in the disappearance of King Emporo, Flavia is abducted by Malsatpyri. It doesn’t take the male faery long to realise Flavia has his heart.
Deniz's Review:
Ellen Margret's Fairies Forever is an anthology of five interconnected short stories that comprise her two previous publications on faeries, A Faery Gathering and Forgotten Faeries, plus one new story. Not your average fairy tales, these stories contain many elements of traditional tales with exciting – and sometimes hilarious – new twists. The first story starts out sweetly enough, with a pair of babies switched at birth. Only one of them happens to be a faery child... Each story escalates in tension level, adding new characters and deeper backgrounds to Margret’s faery realm.
Weaknesses lie in a few textual inconsistencies (Cyana’s full name is alternately spelled Cyanarisia and Cyanarisa; Eben is called Ethan at one point; the third paragraph of the first story states that places of incarceration don’t exist in the faeries’ world, yet a dungeon comes in handy in each adventure) and seemingly incongruous profanities; I couldn’t help but wonder, why call it a shaft (and not a dick, for instance) if the next line is going to include a phrase like “to fuck a faery”. The erotic scenes were quick, with no real romantic build up, and rather clinical for my taste (“he was treated to the most exquisite view, once again, of her female labia”), but this style may be right up other readers alleys.
A number of scenes had me laughing out loud. Who would have thought of nicknaming a strong and wise faery Mighty Mal? And the comeuppance of the bad faeries Festo and Marbo, involving a recurring rat, was amusing to anticipate as each new tale began.
Margret is strong on character growth. I especially enjoyed meeting new characters in one short story who came off as completely antagonistic, and then grew and changed in the subsequent story, so that by the end of the last tale, I was rooting for an entire band of faeries and mortals. I’d love to see a glimpse of their next adventure!
Deniz's Rating:
Hi Deniz and thank you for taking the time to read my faery stories. These were meant to entertain and raise a chuckle, but the stories were not meant to be very erotic. I suppose spicy might be more apt.
ReplyDeleteAs for your comment - 'the third paragraph of the first story states that places of incarceration don’t exist in the faeries’ world, yet a dungeon comes in handy in each adventure'. Please allow me to explain.
At the very beginning all was well in the kingdom of the faeries because the two babies, Hawke and Owletta, had not been swapped. Once they had been swapped the kingdom went into decline and disorder reigned. Thus, the dungeon was then needed and, I guess, things never quite got back to how they were at the beginning. That's my interpretation. The rot had set into the faery kingdom and, you know, to have a good story you have to have the good faeries and the bad.
Thanks again.
Ellen Margret
Thanks Ellen! I like that line "the rot had set into the faery kingdom" - and you're right, that's what started happening. I still can't get over the 'daily' rat, that was hilarious! Not to throw in a spoiler for others, but I was very concerned for Hawke near the end too - I'm glad things worked out the way they did.
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