I liked it but...? I mean; the idea of skewering fables and fairy tales works for me. Having an agenda...not so much. The afterward says plainly it had a purpose for existing besides just being amusing. Perhaps they should have just let the book exist on its own merits.

Eh, enough about that. Sticking to the contents therein, the various characters ranged from amusing to irritating. I think, to be honest, the goat and the sand wich were the most interesting. So we have the farm boy who is told he is the Chosen One, we have the goat who *is* the Chosen One, we have a bard who is turned into a rabbit mutant by a curse laid upon a castle by a sand witch (ahem), we have a warrior who wants to just grow roses, we have a wannabe Dark Lord whose main power seems to be making bread from thin air, we have a rogue who "breathes so loud you could shoot her in the dark", we have the sand witch who...laid the curse upon the castle to prevent the daughter from getting involved in something that would embarrass her family... I mean; it sounds like a D&D party.

And they go adventuring to take out a magician or wizard or something who has the nasty fairy/pixie/whatever she is, who anointed the goat and lied to the farm boy in the first place, on retainer. Stuff happens, a couple of party members don't make it, the Chosen One eats a magic boot, fulfills his destiny, and we have an ending of sorts where he's now king, the castle is mostly awakened, and strangely enough, the daughter seems to be still under a curse.

This is part of a trilogy I think. I might read book #2 if I find it while book shopping.

Readers of Kill the Farm Boy (the first installment in the Tales of Pell trilogy) may have been wondering about what happened to Princess Aurora/Snow White-esque figure, Princess Harkovitra^*. Well, she wakes up, and finds herself in the position she's always wanted—a chance to start over. She leaves her name and home behind, hitching a ride with our old acquaintance Morvin on his way to start a new life himself.

^*Then again, maybe you're like me, and figured she was like Worstely and that her only purpose was to kick-start the novel and hadn't thought of her since.

They're not the only ones looking for a new start. We also meet a swole centaur prone to over-compensation, seeks to reach a mystic temple that will heal him of (what he considers) his emasculating magical abilities. A pariah elf is looking for the opportunity to do something more meaningful than swindle tourists. And we also pick up with one of the newly liberated dryads from No Country for Old Gnomes, who needs a way to get to her chosen law school, Bogtorts.

All of these new starts require the characters to travel somewhere inaccessible to foot/horse/carriage traffic. Enter the Clean Pirate Luc (a.k.a. Filthy Lucre), who happens to be a one-eyed talking parrot. He needs new crew members and is willing to let these travel to their intended destinations in exchange for labor. Even if the result is something incongruous, like a centaur swabbing the decks (thankfully, that's a funny image—a great thing for a comedic fantasy). Except for Morvin, who has other plans that involve less of the high seas.

The pirate ship ends up being just the thing to take our characters from quick adventure to quick adventure, creating opportunities for bonding and character growth. It's different enough from the land-based pilgrimages of the past two novels to keep things feeling fresh, while allowing the same kind of vibe to permeate the book. I'm not the biggest fan of pirate/ship-based adventures, but when they're done well, they are a lot of fun. And who doesn't like a good Melville-based joke (or several)?

Not just Melville-based jokes, but there's more than a couple of The Princess Bride riffs (in case the title didn't tip you off). Which seems timely, given the resurgence in interest in William Goldman's classic thanks to some nonsense about remaking the movie. I could be wrong, but this seems to be the jokiest of the three (I'm pretty sure my notes/list of great lines is longer than normal). Not that the others were joke-light, but this seems more focused on them and less focused on the story. Which makes it less successful as a novel in my opinion. But that's in comparison to two really strong and effective novels, so I'm not saying it's not a good read—it's just a not-as-good-as-I-wanted read. If this was the first Pell book I'd read, I'd rush out to get the others (particularly, if a charming and insightful blogger had said the others were better than this one). I started chuckling within a page and didn't finish until the end. Sometimes I did more than chuckle.

I'm not complaining a bit about the number of jokes, the character names alone are hilarious and make the book worth reading. It just takes away some of the impact of the story and the characters—or it distracted the authors from making them as compelling as they could have been. It's kind of a chicken vs. egg thing.

Each of these characters gets an opportunity to find themselves, find their inner-strength, true desires, real self—whatever you want to call it. It turns out that some of them were right all along, and others just needed the fresh perspective that extreme circumstances can bring.

I didn't connect with this one as much as I did the ones before, ditto for any of the characters. But I expect that my experience isn't typical—The Princess Beard will resonate with some more than the others did. Either way, the reader will enjoy the ride. It's exciting, it's affirming, it's a hoot.

I'm going to miss Pell, and hope the authors decide to dip their collective toes back into the land from time to time in the future. If not, at least we get the beginnings for these beautiful friendships.

Disclaimer: I received this eARC from Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine via NetGalley in exchange for this post—thanks to both for this entertaining romp.

I don't even know how to start talking about this book.  It's insane.

I first heard about it from Irresponsible Reader and I've been enjoying Kevin Hearne's Iron Druid Chronicles for a few years.  And it's subtitle sold me:

Once A Pun A Time...

So I was expecting a funny read and I was expecting the puns, but I wasn't at all expecting the sheer enormity of innuendo and entendres: double, triple - possibly quadruple, but I suspect some of it went over my head as I struggled now to drown in the Monty Python-esque silliness of it all.  Examples include a chapter involving the band of unlikely heroes traveling through the elven Morning Wood, with more innuendo, puns and entendres than you can possibly imagine, and later in the book a trip to a pub called Balzac's, where the chef is the famous "wrinkled Balzac", and the house speciality is candied nuts.

It's quite frequently over-the-top, but it's still hilarious and sometimes sweet and a little bit shocking in unexpected ways.  My favorite character was Gustave, the talking goat, by a large margin, though the rest of the band of unlikely adventurers all have their own charms too.  

It's incredibly well-written and it's obvious the authors had a good time writing it, but Luke Daniels did an exceptional job narrating this book.  This is one of those rare instances where I think the reader would lose something by reading a physical copy.  Daniels owns this book and the characters in it, reading it like a dramatisation.  I recommend the audio unreservedly for anyone looking for a goofy good time.

I started the book in August, but it was due back at the library before I was half finished, and I didn't get it back until after Halloween Bingo started, so it qualifies. As there were scenes involving necro-bees and acid leeches, I'm going to use this for the Creepy Crawly square.

Princess Aeve has been locked up in a tower for the past six years. She'll only be let out when her father finds a husband for her who hopefully isn't too horrible. Until then, she keeps herself busy with songs, as well as letters to and from the local women, who were all left behind when their husbands, brothers, and sons went adventuring with the king.

One lone man, Sir Riddick, comes back to the castle with news that all the men were killed by a dragon and that a monster-attracting curse was cast upon the village. Merinor, who'd been acting as the local blacksmith while her husband was gone, accepts a sword from a lady in a fountain and becomes the new king. She, Princess Aeve, and Sir Riddick try to prepare everyone to face the monsters that will soon be arriving.

I found out about this graphic novel while doing a bit of research for a possible grant proposal. Ladycastle got a Virginia Library Association Graphic Novel Diversity Award honorable mention in 2017. It sounded interesting, so I requested a copy.

My description (and the publisher's) makes it sound a bit like this graphic novel has lots of women training to fight and battle monsters. Although there's a little of that, that isn't really what happens. Instead, most of the monster problems are solved in nonviolent ways, much to Sir Riddick's confusion.

The publisher's description also makes it sound a bit like the women suddenly realized that the men had done all sorts of useful tasks, once all the men were gone and they had to do those tasks themselves. Uh... That didn't really happen. In fact, the only person in the entire village who actually seemed to miss any of the men was Gwyneff, Princess Aeve's younger sister. From the sounds of things, Merinor got to do a lot more while her husband was gone than when he was around. Yanni, a disabled woman, was kept hidden by her husband and told that she was a drain on resources. Aeve was locked in a tower for years by her own father. Ms. Physik was kept as a slave. The list could go on.

There was a funeral, and the characters looked sad for a bit, but I didn't really get the impression that anyone except Gwyneff cared that all those men had died, or even had reason to care. And honestly, Gwyneff's anger at being the only upset person was somehow more annoying than anything. You'd think this town would have had at least one decent guy worth mourning. Or heck, one male child. Were there any children, aside from Gwyneff?

It was kind of fun trying to match the snippets of song lyrics throughout the volume to the tunes they were supposed to be sung to (the ones I knew without having to do some googling: Beauty and the Beast's "Little Town" and "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air"), and the solutions to the various monster problems were creative. That said, my overall feelings for Ladycastle were only so-so.

All of the characters felt like cardboard, even Aeve, Merinor, and Gwyneff - if those three felt fleshed out at all, it was only because everyone else was so flat. The volume dug into Gwyneff and Aeve's relationship a little, as well as their relationship with their stepmother, but it was just scratching the surface. Same with Merinor, her private fears and self-doubt, and her possibly complicated feelings about her husband. And I outright snorted at Sir Riddick's out-of-the-blue epiphany about the negative aspects of chivalry. Was that one little panel supposed to count as character growth?

The artwork disappointed me a little too. It didn't look all that bad (I preferred Becca Farrow's art style to Ashley A. Woods'), but the transitions between some of the panels weren't very good. This was most noticeable in Chapter 1. In one scene, Sir Riddick was sitting at one end of the table while Merinor was standing at the other end. The next panel featured a close-up of Riddick saying something stupid and demeaning, and in the panel after that one Merinor was suddenly standing on the table in front of Riddick. I know that she had to have jumped on the table, but the actions weren't communicated as well as they could have been.

All in all, this was okay, but it felt like a joke that was stretched out longer than it should have been, starring characters who needed more room to breathe and grow.

Extras:

A cover gallery.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

Meh. It seemed like a nice idea, but it was too short to effectively accomplish anything.