Not much to say besides how much I adored this one. It's fairly short, about 80/90 pages with illustrations (e-book version). The illustrations are really what sold this book to me though. They make the story come alive. 

"The Sleeper and the Spindle" begins with some dwarves who have gone into a neighboring kingdom and heard about a castle where everyone is sleeping. Through the years the sleep spell has spread and now many people feel they are all doomed to sleep. The dwarves go back to their own kingdom and meet with the Queen (otherwise known as her Majesty) and she is told about the sleep spell. Though she's to be married (like the next day) she decides to ride off with the dwarves to see about breaking the spell.

I loved that Gaiman never gives you anyone's name. He pretty much treats it as if you should know who people are at this point.

Hint, it's Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. What I thought worked really well is that it is heavily implied and then shown that Snow White's battle with her stepmother and all that entails has left her marked in a ways. She's not exactly jumping up and down to rule. 

I loved the twist ending since I thought it was heading in a different direction. Now I need a follow-up to this story. 

What a great story giving us a look at what happened to Snow White after her kiss. The highlights are the illustrations though.

It it really makes me want to run out and buy this in hardback.

My coworker (again, the one with the best taste) recommended this book to me. 

Let me take this moment to say that I didn't really enjoy a Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. He was always going on about how their lives were so terrible, but I just thought they're not dead, they're still together, much worse things could be happening to them... It just never felt like he really delivered on the promise that the Baudelaires' lives were so horrible. 

I had no such problems with A Tale Dark and Grimm. It does exactly what it says on the tin. One of the best fractured fairy tales I've read. 

Wow what a great retelling of Beauty and the Beast. The flow was a bit of a problem throughout. However, Spooner did such as great job with character development that it didn’t bother me. I also loved that the curse in This story was really about want and desire. I thought that Yeva and the Beast were very good opposites of each other, one light and one dark.

Hunted  begins with the story of the young daughter of a merchant (Yeva also known as Beauty) and her two sisters. The family is fairly well to do and the one sister is engaged to be married and Yeva has caught the eye of a man who is to be the Baron’s heir. However the girls’ father loses their fortune and they have to go and live in the woods. The father becomes a little bit mad in the woods and then eventually goes missing. Yeva goes out to find him and finds his dead body. She ends up captured by the Beast.

Spooner alternates between third person with Yeva and others and first person when we have the Beast telling us his thoughts on Beauty. Yeva doesn’t Initially understand about the Beast because he keeps her blindfolded. But when she looks upon his face she sees him as a monster and accuses him of murdering her father. The Beast does not tell her that he’s not the murderer instead he starts training her to hunt something. Every day for months Yeva is taken out into the forest and taught to shoot her father’s bow and arrow.

I really like the Beast and Yeva. They were written very well. Spooner also did a very good job with her sisters, the father, the two sisters love interests, and everybody else. She also did a very good job of mixing in fairy tale elements as well. I also thought it was pretty cool that Yeva tells the Beast tales and it echoed Arabian Nights a little bit. 

I did think the flow was a bit off. The first bit before they move to the woods dragged too. However, the book eventually evens out.

Very interesting ending and I thought a great retelling of Beauty and the Beast with enough unique elements of its own.