A dragonfly and a vampire walk into a library…
Two books this time!
First up is:
Dragonfly - Julia Golding
Put this one under the generic royal fantasy rescue quest heading please, because this falls squarely into that heading.
Two members of royalty are betrothed to each other in the name of diplomatic relations, they get along badly, get kidnapped, go through imprisonment together, escape (together), get separated and both do their part in overthrowing a barbarian conqueror. Trope-ish. You get the idea. A junk food sort of read.
A junk food sort of read that’s satisfying though, once you get past the awkwardness of when they first meet. It also takes a while to get your head around the fact that the princess from a startling Japan/China-like set of islands has ash-blond hair.
Like I shouldn’t complain while eating it that junk food is full of sugar or artificial seasonings, I do feel hypocritical that the ending felt a bit too happy. Mostly I say this because the three countries the barbarian conqueror conquered? The prince who defeated him restored them (more or less) to their proper rulers and got to rule over the land the conqueror started off in. Yeah.
Oh, and the princess isn’t necessarily a princess anymore at the end of it either. On one hand it’s good, but the other doesn’t think so. *watches her two hands battle it out*
Anyway, generally good. Which is in general better than this next one...
Tantalize - Cynthia Leitich Smith
It’s got vampires, weres and is based around a restaurant. It’s set in Texas and one of the characters shares a last name with someone I know.
I thought it would be good.
It wasn’t.
Somewhere between the first stirrings of the plot and the book’s climax something went wrong. I think it has something to do with the fact you don’t realise (or at least I didn’t) that Quincie is slowly becoming a vampire and that something is wrong. It focuses too much on food and not enough on anything else.
There’s also the fact that the conclusion is not conclusive. Because I certainly did not get if Bradley got away, or if he was mauled by a werewolf or if Kieren stays with Quincie. All I got was that Quincie stays where she is and takes over the family restaurant.
That’s it.
And I did like some bits, some characters. Like the prologue, Kieren and the rest of the weres. But no, all the attention is given to the vampires and… *sighs* I doubt I’m going to even pick up the supposed sequel even out of sheer morbid curiosity.
So yes, this one is not recommended. At all.