This took me only 10months to read... well, I read at first one story a week... wrote reviews for each.. then I kinda put it aside and never got back into it. Till one day - well today actually - I decided that this was ridiculous and I read the entire thing in one go. 

So why did it take me this long?!

I love anthologies. I have a fondness for short stories. They like the little treat in-between, the unexpected surprise in the middle of a work day. 

Still I found this difficult to get through. 

I think part of the problem was that I did this the wrong way and the other I have this in the wrong format. 

I strongly recommend others to get a hardcopy of this. Because in my opinion this should be a coffee table book. It does look pretty enough for starters. But also as I said, when you relaxing and feel like a tidbit of reading this might be your mini-fix. If this would be the case my other advise flip the book open and read the stories randomly at your on pleasure. 

So since I don't have an hardcopy and I got the ARC of this, I found myself never doing said procedure, which is a huge part why this took me so long.

The other reason was simply I set myself a too high goal writing a review for each and every short story- meant I didn't pick this up because I had no time to review it straight after... simply to ambitious of me

Now the book itself has some seriously good stories in them and some that I didn't like.

Since this is written by different authors this was to be expected. 

I actually should confess that I am always always really skeptical when there is a fairytale retelling involved. Because frankly when Disney went a called a movie Rapunzel that had absolutely nothing AT ALL to do with the original fairytale - which happened to be on of  my favorites when I was a child,  by the way- I was beyond disappointed. I could simply not like the film. So now I am always always wary.

And while Grim is really fabulously done, I am still not convinced it is my favorite genre. I think I prefer new stories... or maybe I just grew out of fairytales? Who knows?

Still this a great gift for lovers of anthologies, the genre and books.

And in fact I shall procure a hardcopy for those cold days in front of the fire when I feel like a little treat.

The end of this?! Brilliant!!
But let me warn you, right now, it's a cliffy. 

This also left me with the dilemma on how to rate it. Because frankly I had a few issues with the rest of it:

When I started it, I immediately thought, that I will struggle with this. Because frankly, I didn't like the writing style. Then in the second chapter I was actually ok with the writing style.  And as I read on, I realised that my issue was Damon's POV. The two POV as distinctively different written. So different that I every single time was taken aback by Damon's and though I found it got a wee bit better, I just don't like it. I am still surprised about it and can't really explain why. It was expression that were use, the style of writing, it felt over the top, too put on. And there is the main crux of my rating. If I don't like the writing style- I find it impossible to get into the book. 

Still as I was fine with Tiffany (which I still find kinda odd btw), I am left wishing I would have liked it more.. and even contemplating giving the next book a try.

The reason for that is the ending. Just super brilliant! I was so sure Ballenger is not going to go there, that when she did, I was beyond shocked. The story line is in many ways , typical PNR and tortured alpha Hero so there weren't many surprises. Lost of heartstrings were pulled, quite a bit of rather captivating action was thrown in and plenty of smut was added. 

The character building was - uhm- honestly I don't know how I feel about it. There were the tortured star-crossed lovers. But while I think that Ballenger did the character building of both MCs quite comprehensively, I know loads about them, I don't feel like I know them. I couldn't really connect to either of them, because there was too much cliche stuff going on in my opinion: insta-lust, star-crossed lovers, tortured hero, alpha dudes, V-cards... it was all thrown in. But actually I honestly think, loads of people will not only have no issues with that, they will love it. 

The villains were seriously too over the top for my taste. It made the whole thing nearly comical and I found it destroyed the hype and tension Ballenger had been building up. 

The world building is actually quite well done, this is clearly a set up for the novels that are to come and as such, it did a very good job. There are quite a few adventures, Supernaturals and love stories ahead that much I can tell you. 

Which leaves me with the big question; will I read the next instalment? Honestly I don't know. But only because of my issues with Damon's POV. I actually do hope that I would like the next book... but then again, what if I don't?

I guess the jury is still out on that one.

I think this has potential and I kinda hope Ballenger takes it to a different level in the next instalment

If you are a PNR lover, give this a try- and then you could be my test reader for the next one! *smirks* yep, definitely a great plan, don't you think?