Friday, April 1, 2011

Sleeping Beauty: Vampire Slayer by Maureen McGowan



Title/Author: Sleeping Beauty: Vampire Slayer (Twisted Tales #2) by Maureen McGowan
Publisher/Date published: Silver Dolphin Books, April 1st 2011
How I got this book: received it from the publisher through NetGalley

Goodreads summary: "In this thrilling story full of adventure and romance, Sleeping Beauty is more than just a lonely princess waiting for her prince—she's a brave, tenacious girl who never backs down from a challenge. With vampire-slaying talents that she practices in secret, Sleeping Beauty puts her courage to the test in the dark of night, fighting evil as she searches for a way to break the spell that has cut her off from her family."

Sleeping Beauty with a twist! Lucette isn't a damsel in distress in the stereotypical kind of way. Sure, she's distressed because of the curse and needs to figure out how to break it, but she's not sitting around while someone else figures out how to do this.
Lucette was cursed at birth by the Vampire Queen Natasha because she wasn't invited to the naming ceremony. If she pricked one of her fingers after turning 16 on anything whatsoever, she would fall asleep from sunrise to sundown and be awake the other part of the day, but then the rest of the kingdom would be asleep. The only way to break the spell is to prove that she's found true love. But it's kind of hard to fall in love if no-one's actually awake to fall in love with.
Because Lucette is a firm believer of taking matters in your own hands, she trains to become a vampire slayer, so she can protect herself and her parents when the curse comes to pass.

I absolutely loved Lucette! She's a really strong girl and doesn't mind a little deceiving to get what she wants: slayer-training. Of course, it's not done for girls to actually train at slayer school, the only one who will teach her is Tristan, a boy from another country. This is love interest number one, he's a very likeable boy and very knight-in-shining-armor-like.

Lucette's mother is very much anti-vampire and has always told Lucette they're evil and killing machines. Then Lucette meets Alex, a very nice boy vampire, who doesn't seem to want to drink her blood or anyone else's for that matter. This is love interest number two. I thought he was a pretty nice boy as well.

The thing is: I couldn't decide who I wanted her to end up with. A revelation towards the end points me firmly in the right direction, but otherwise I wouldn't have felt like it was fair on at least one of them.

In this book you can choose a couple of times what you want Lucette to do when she has to choose between two options. I've only read one way to the end, but I think there are about 8 different routes. I'll probably go back and choose differently, but I really liked the story as I read it this time.

I loved how we got to see why Queen Natasha cursed Lucette, it wasn't just plain hatefulness. There were some pretty well-kept secrets in Lucette's family. Her father was a bit overbearing and her mother a bit close-minded, but I could see where they were coming from.

Did I mention sometime that I LOVE fairytale retellings? Especially with powerful female characters. And Lucette is just that. The ending was a bit abrupt and slightly too easy in my opinion, but I really enjoyed this book and I'm gonna check out more by the author.

My rating: 4,5 stars (if it wasn't for the ending, I would have given it 5)

2 comments:

  1. I saw this one on NetGalley too, and I'm glad it turned out so good for you.

    I'll love Fairy tale retellings too, so I'll keep this one in mind! :D

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  2. I have a friend who loves fairy tales and vampires so this one would be a great book to reccommend to her. I might also request this one on net galley when I get a kindle for my birthday. Thank you!

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