In mood to let you hair down? It is only Tuesday and I want to climb out the window!

Enjoy these Rapunzel Themed Romance Novels! 

My lists are never in any particular order.

1. Zelle and the Tower by Rrebekah R. Ganiere

Sweet and naïve Rapunzelle possesses a dangerous and powerful magick. Her entire life has been spent in a mage tower built by her father, to keep her safe. Or so she's been told. Flint Gwyn has spent the better part of the last year wandering Fairelle, wanting nothing more than to wash away the pain of letting his family down. Between drinking and womanizing he plummets in to despair, with only Dax the werebear to keep him from getting himself killed. When Flint and Dax stumble into Zelle's tower while running from a dragon, she finds herself drawn to him in a way that awakens startling memories she cannot place. And the longer he stays, the closer she comes to losing her heart. Unable to control his feelings for the lonely maiden who brings him peace for the first time in his life, Flint fights to release her from her prison. But in doing so, he may very well bring down the wrath of an evil that's plagued Fairelle for a hundred years.

2. Tarnished Knight by Shiloh Walker

ne look at Jack Wallace and Perci knows he’s going to be trouble. Even surrounded by soul stealers, he’s a one-man wrecking crew. What does he need Grimm training for? He’s already hell on earth, a warrior bent on destruction. And something…more. 

He’s too strong and fast to be a mere mortal. Even covered in blood, he makes her forget she’s only here to do a job and get out. It’s twisted. Sick. She hasn’t felt this alive in three centuries.

Born with a natural talent for killing unnatural things, Jack has always known things he shouldn’t. The fact that Perci is one of them glows all over her. Giving him an unholy urge to see just how far he can push her before don’t touch me melts into touch me there.

When they come together, it isn’t careful or cautious. It’s heaven and hell, exposing all their raw and wounded places to healing heat, resurrecting memories of a destined love from the distant past. But the evil that destroyed them once before has tracked them here, threatening their second and last chance at forever. Demanding a sacrifice no one—Grimm or human—should ever be asked to make…

3. Rapunzel in New York by Nikki Logan

Galloping up a crumbling tower block, he crashed into the chamber where she was imprisoned! The Maiden gasped and said – that she was perfectly happy, thank you very much, and certainly didn’t need saving, especially by a smug, designer-suited billionaire, and why had he just kicked in her front door?

It’s sometimes hard for a modern damsel in distress to admit she needs rescuing – but at least this heroine plans to rescue her hero right back!

4. The Chocolate Kiss by Laura Florand

The Heart of Paris

Welcome to La Maison des Sorcieres. Where the window display is an enchanted forest of sweets, a collection of conical hats delights the eye and the habitués nibble chocolate witches from fanciful mismatched china. While in their tiny blue kitchen, Magalie Chaudron and her two aunts stir wishes into bubbling pots of heavenly chocolat chaud.

But no amount of wishing will rid them of interloper Philippe Lyonais, who has the gall to open one of his world famous pastry shops right down the street. Philippe's creations seem to hold a magic of their own, drawing crowds of beautiful women to their little isle amidst the Seine, and tempting even Magalie to venture out of her ivory tower and take a chance, a taste. . .a kiss. 

Parisian princesses, chocolate witches, pâtissier princes and sweet wishes--an enchanting tale of amour et chocolat.

5. Golden Stair by Jennifer Blackstream

A devil-may-care incubus with a ravenous appetite . . . 

Adonis is a demon prince determined to bury his desire for love in the pleasures of the flesh. Bound by a vow to maintain his physical form, Adonis requires a great deal of energy just to live, energy he can only absorb through the carnal arts…more energy than any one woman could ever provide. Adonis knows he could never offer a woman the fidelity she would deserve as his wife, and so carries on with his wild ways, his cryptic smile hidden behind a puff of smoke. No woman can reach beyond the heat of his embrace to touch his heart. Not even the golden-haired maid whose lonely eyes keep wooing him back to her side. 

A damsel in distress with the power to destroy him . . . 

Ivy has lived in a tower, locked away from the rest of the world, for her entire life. Her mother, a witch who leads the resistance against the bloodthirsty kings of the five kingdoms, is her only company. Ivy knows that her battle-weary mother relies on the golden power flowing through her veins for the energy to continue the good fight, but she can’t completely smother the selfish yearning to see the world beyond the safety of their hidden valley…especially when her wildest fantasy almost literally falls into her lap. Despite their best intentions, they’re drawn together like phoenixes to flame—and if they’re not careful, they’ll both burn. 

An incubus can only deny his nature for so long . . . 

Long golden hair. A tower with no stairs. A witch with serious possession issues. Debilitating blindness. None of these are enough to keep a demon from climbing…the Golden Stair. 

6. Cress by Marissa Meyer

Cinder and Captain Thorne are fugitives on the run, now with Scarlet and Wolf in tow. Together, they're plotting to overthrow Queen Levana and prevent her army from invading Earth.

Their best hope lies with Cress, a girl trapped on a satellite since childhood who's only ever had her netscreens as company. All that screen time has made Cress an excellent hacker. Unfortunately, she's being forced to work for Queen Levana, and she's just received orders to track down Cinder and her handsome accomplice. 

When a daring rescue of Cress goes awry, the group is splintered. Cress finally has her freedom, but it comes at a higher price than she'd ever expected. Meanwhile, Queen Levana will let nothing prevent her marriage to Emperor Kai, especially the cyborg mechanic. Cress, Scarlet, and Cinder may not have signed up to save the world, but they may be the only hope the world has.

7. Rapunzel by Selena Kitt

Rachel runs Rapunzel’s, a high-end salon on the lower level of a downtown Chicago high rise and lives happily in self-imposed exile in an apartment at the top of the tower—that is until Jake Malden walks in with his teen daughter, Emma, and presents Rachel with a dilemma. 

Young Emma is determined to defy her mother’s wishes and get her long, beautiful, untouched hair cut off so she can donate it to charity to honor a friend with cancer. 

Rachel’s decision to cut the girl’s hair starts a snowball of drama, turmoil and hidden secrets rolling downhill on a course with destiny that no one is able to stop, one that ultimately threatens not only Rachel’s livelihood, but her slowly melting heart as well. 

8. Braided Silk by Ella Drake

Rapunzel was made with technologically advanced hair. As a trained Mother agent, Zel can't escape the DNA that makes her a pawn in corporate espionage. Kidnapped and held in a tower on Gothel Island, she falls to the sexual allure of her captor’s son, Langley, a man whose every tantalizing touch makes her forget she wasn’t born human. 

Langley Gothel protests the existence of creations such as Zel, but when faced with losing her, he sees the truth: Life is precious, whether born, modified, or shaped in a Petri dish. He does the one thing he's thought he'd never do. He has to give up Zel, or become a mod. But will that be enough to get them down from the floating islands and safely to ground?

9. The Crystal Heart by Sophie Masson

 girl in a tower. An underground kingdom. A crystal heart split in two, symbolising true love lost . . . 

When Kasper joins the elite guard watching over a dangerous prisoner in a tower, he believes he is protecting his country from a powerful witch.  

Until one day he discovers the prisoner is a beautiful princess - Izolda of Night- who is condemned by a prophecy to die on her eighteenth birthday. Kasper decides to help her escape. But their hiding place won't remain secret forever. 

Will they find their happily ever after?

10. Golden by Cameron Dokey

efore Rapunzel's birth, her mother made a dangerous deal with the sorceress Melisande: If she could not love newborn Rapunzel just as she appeared, she would surrender the child to Melisande. When Rapunzel was born completely bald and without hope of ever growing hair, her horrified mother sent her away with the sorceress to an uncertain future. 

After sixteen years of raising Rapunzel as her own child, Melisande reveals that she has another daughter, Rue, who was cursed by a wizard years ago and needs Rapunzel's help. Rue and Rapunzel have precisely "two nights and the day that falls between" to break the enchantment. But bitterness and envy come between the girls, and if they fail to work together, Rue will remain cursed...forever.

Vote on my Goodreads list so the best retelling win: Rapunzel Themed Romance Novels . 

I decided that I had to read this book right away after seeing Frozen. I'm obsessed with that movie and I listen to "Let it Go" on a daily basis. Not kidding. I also read too much Jelsa FanFic. I have a problem. Not gonna even try to deny it at all.

I also want to say that the girl on the cover is not how I imagined Deirdre, the Winter's Child, at all. Maybe I'm weird to not like it, but whatever.

So there's Kai and Grace, two neighbors that have been best friends since they were born. When they turn 16 and their families have died, Kai proposes to Grace. She loves him, but she's not ready. Kai totally freaks out and things are said. Because of this, Kai meets the Winter's Child, the girl he has heard the story about many times, and goes off with her to her castle. This seems strange to me. You just meet this girl and decide to go to her house? Really? After Grace sees that Kai has left, she sets out to find him.

From the beginning, I thought that Kai and Grace would end up together. But they don't. Kai and Deirdre, who changes her name to Hope at the end of the book, get together. I thought it was weird that Deirdre changed her name. I also thought it was weird that the falcon/hawk that helps Grace turns into a human. I feel like the author just didn't want Grace to end up alone.

As much as I can't stand Kanye, this gif is pretty accurate with my reaction.

I had super high hopes, and I was pretty let down. I guess it's pretty hard to compare something to Frozen, the best Disney movie ever. And to those who don't agree...

Grace

I thought she was fine. She had a good reason to not get married, she wasn't ready. Even after Kai was a jerk in response, she still went after him. Sure, she was no Anna, but she was OK.

Kai

Now I was annoyed by this little idiot. Yeah, I know Grace did that wish thing on him, but it was an accident. After meeting Deirdre, he's like totally obsessed with her. They just met. You're pathetic.

Deirdre

She totally ruined my ship.

I don't like her.

Overall, maybe I would've liked this book had I not had such high hopes after seeing Frozen. But that movie is amazing and everyone should love it. Just love it.

24/1 - This is the next book in my 'read everything on my library shelves' challenge, because it's the next book alphabetically and categorically.  Immediately recognised Dokey as one of the multiple authors from the book I was reviewing this morning - The Warren Witches (Charmed).  Her unexpected appearance writing for Angel just hours after I finished reading her Charmed story made me think of a British tv phenomenon I've noticed.  Others who watch a lot of British tv shows might also have noticed that if you were to watch any three random British tv shows you'll find you are about 90% likely to come across one or more actors who are in two or more of those three shows.  I figure there's only a limited number of actors for hundreds of different shows, so you come across the guy from that cop show last night in this sci-fi show with the girl from the period drama you watched on the weekend - it's a bit like that game 'seven degrees of Kevin Bacon'.  Hopefully Dokey's Angel story is as good as the one she wrote for Charmed - she got the 'voice' of all the main characters exactly right, unlike another author who writes fanfic for multiple tv shows including Buffy and Charmed.  To be continued...

Sections in this review: Research. Writing. Characters.

Research—
I was pleasantly surprised at how closely this followed the ancient poem "The Ballad of Mulan", who is a historical figure who make have lived around the Northern Wei dynasty.
I had low expectations for this since this was my first time reading anything by Cameron Dokey and because I thought since it was a "retelling"* it would be shallow, which it kind of was but at least she went above my expectations in terms of writing style.
To clarify what I mean by shallow, I assumed Dokey would merely utilized archetypal and stereotypical conceptions of ancient Chinese people ad culture. However, Dokey showed that she did some do research for this. The description of the characters revealed the concept behind writing certain characters—the story and history behind a Chinese character and how it's important to its meaning. (Which I appreciate since that is why I adore traditional Chinese script so much.) Mulan's monologue in the beginning, fairly depicted the old-school ways of fortune-telling (by zodiac, birthday, numbers, and stuff) and—from what I observed from my mom's practice of that—Dokey's evaluation of Mulan in those terms were well done. She has shown a decent understanding of the culture and even gender roles, but it was still very generic to the point where the story could have been set in some other Asian country.
Now because this followed the original poem so well, it reminded me of the 2009 Chinese movie version (Hua Mulan, starring Zhao Wei)which made me have deja vu expereiences while reading the book. Seriously, if you want to watch this book, watch Hua Mulan (2009).

Writing—
I like her style. The descriptions and introspective passages were beautifully written. Her sentences seemed short yet concise, which I love because it really help move the story along. Short and sweet and straight forward is a good way to go with such an overdone story like that of Mulan. But it didn't really do much for her character because even during introspection, Mulan's attributes are shallow and I don't feel anything really deep or relatable about her.
I appreciate that Dokey didn't focus so much on the romantic aspect of this book. Even though I enjoyed Hua Wei and Zao Xing's endearing relationship, it was only a plot device and I like it that way. I'm sure there are a few people who may have wanted Mulan and Li Po to end up together, but that wouldn't be right. It would take away from Dokey's subliminal message of how a girl and a guy can be friends without falling romantically for each other. Though I would be content if Mulan didn't really have a relationship, I see how important Jian is to be character. By establishing a relationship with Jian, Mulan established a relationship with her father. To be clearer, Hua Wei inspired Jian to be courageous, so when Mulan didn't really want anyone to uplift her spirits Jian unknowingly stepped in as her father would (eh, maybe he wouldn't but I mean they have a pretty tight relationship so...) by encouraging to be courageous.
Overall, good rhetoric and good use of characters and character interactions. But with the shortness of the book, it did feel rough and choppy at the time transitions as well as made her hastily establish herself as a hero to the point where there wasn't much any emotional struggle for her. Also, the narration in this book is so generic I didn't have a feel for anything distinctly of Chinese culture. It was nicely written, but it was like every other of "accurate" narration of the same story.

Characters—
Hua Mulan: Realtic female protagonist in that Dokey displayed her strengths and weaknesses. In terms of her character, one flaw would be, that she gets over things a little too easily. She doesn't have that much of a struggle in which she was truly suffering. There were obstacle in her way, but she was about to get over them easily—even Li Po's death because at least her Prince was alive.
I like that she's head-strong, clever, and can shoot like a champion yet is mildly feminine (I'm referring to her gushy feelings for Jian), has that flaw of thinking she knows what's best (which she did most of the time throughout the book, but I'm just zeroing in on the "food incident" with Min Xian before Mulan left), etc.
Li Po: I really liked this guy. He was balanced in his attributes and I like that he didn't look down on Mulan for wanting to do what the boys did. Mostly like because she was higher on the ladder than him family-wise, but still...Li Po was a good friend and it was a shame to see him go.
Jian: The relationship between him and Mulan was very forced, possibly due to the shortness of the book. It's great that he is humble and has a sense of humor, but Mulan never really established an deep emotional connect with him, one that would be strong enough to fight for him and her country, of course.
Gen. Yuwen and Hua Wei: If you though I was happy Li Po being so accepting of Mulan's social defiance, than I was elated when I read that two army men were accepting and encouraging of Mulan's ambitions. These two are really good father-figures, but that still make this novel a bit too male-heavy.
Zao Xing: Thank goodness she is not an "evil step-mother", not that Mulan would really submit to that. She's a kind soul and a cute plot device; good addition to the roster, Dokey.
Min Xian: The sassy-caretaker. She's an archetype, but I love her anyway, like I do with every other sassy-caretaker I'm seen/read (e.g. Rhonda from A Cinderella Story).