First up is NAUGHTY CINDERELLA.  Cinderella works as a prostitute to bring money into her family so her stepsisters and her stepmother can live the life they feel they deserve.  When the prince comes to the town square to announce a ball, they laugh when Cinderella says she wants to attend.  Though she found a beautiful gown, they destroy it and go to the ball without her.  She sits in a tub knowing her life will end.  Her fairy godmother appears and gives Cinderella all she needs to go to the ball including crystal slippers with the admonition to return home by midnight.  Will she?  Will she amaze the prince?  Will he marry her?

I enjoyed this tale.  It follows a lot of the CINDERELLA fairy tale with a few differences.  Her stepsisters may be beautiful on the outside, but they are ugly on the inside.  She is the most beautiful woman at the ball and the prince knows it.  As he says, “it’s in the eyes.”  When midnight comes Cinderella runs out.  She manages to make it home but just barely.  I liked the differences.  I liked how the prince could identify her.  I also liked the secret he shared on their wedding night.  I hope nothing but good comes to them.

Next is RIDING RED HOOD.  Red is running through the woods trying to outrun cannibals.  Suddenly the cannibals are attacked and killed by a beast-like creature.  The next morning Red is in her own bed.  But how did she get there?  She has no memory when her fiancée asks her as the Chief Protector.  He sends her to his detectives for questioning.  They question her story.  She gets angry especially when she learns attacks had been happening for some time.  Her fiancée and his men set out to find and kill the beast.  Red decides to find him first.  Who will find the creature?  What is the creature?  Why is Red so interested in him?

I liked this story.  It’s a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood but a lot more grown up and without the woodsman to kill the big bad wolf.  I liked Red and Kull, the creature.  There was more passion between them then between Red and her fiancée.  He was a jerk!  I was not crazy about the ending, but I liked it rather than how it could have ended with Red and her fiancée.  An interesting story.

Last is BEAUTH AND THE BEAST WITH TWO BACKS.  Belle’s father goes off with his mistress to the Beast’s castle.  There he picks a black rose for his mistress.  The Beast catches him and in exchange, Belle’s father offers her up.  Belle comes and stays while her father and his mistress leave along with their retinue.  Belle tries to keep her distance from the Beast but gradually spends more time with him and develops a friendship with him.  Her father sends word that he wants to see her before he dies.  Will the Beast let her leave?  If he does, will she come back?  If she comes back, what will she find?

I enjoyed this story.  It follows THE BEAUTY AND THE BEAST more than the other stories followed their fairy tales.  I liked Belle and Beast.  They had to learn to trust each other.  I liked the trust Beast placed in Belle.  Belle learned a lot from Beast.  She finally learned not to not accept bad behavior and to stand up for herself.  It is an interesting end.  Not one I was expecting.  I wonder what does happen when the tale is finished.

Amazon  /  Goodreads

MY ONE SENTENCE REVIEW

GOODREADS BLURB

A post-Ensnared collection of three stories—available in both print and e-versions.

Alyssa Gardner went down the rabbit hole and took control of her destiny. She survived the battle for Wonderland and the battle for her heart. In this collection of three novellas, join Alyssa and her family as they look back at their memories of Wonderland.

In Six Impossible Things, Alyssa recalls the most precious moments of her life after Ensnared, and the role magic plays in preserving the happiness of those she loves. Alyssa’s mother reminisces about her own time in Wonderland and rescuing the man who would become her husband in The Boy in the Web. And Morpheus delves into Jeb’s memories of the events of Splintered in The Moth in the Mirror, available in print for the first time.

This collection expands upon Ensnared‘s epilogue, and includes some deleted scenes to provide a “director’s cut” glimpse into the past and futures of our favorite Splintered characters.

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                      ARC provided by Carina UK through Netgalley

Missing commas, missing words, and missing sense... maybe they're keeping the insane fairy tales company?

What in the blazes happened with this?

You know how, in some stories, you can't help noticing that the authors don't have an actual plot, so they just focus on filling pages with endless, useless words, joined by a parade of never ending adjectives?
Verbose, that's what we call them, right?

On the other hand there are times when we feel like we are reading pages that have been ripped of a phone book... a scary and dark phone book, as turned out to be the case for this story.
The writing was that basic :/

Okay... this is the second book in a row to which I give a one and half star.

I may be turning mellow with my old age :/ because other people would probably give it a star, if that much.

Let's call things as they really are: This is a novella, and even so, a poorly developed one.

My conscience is battling with me, forcing me to admit that I gave my previous read 1.5 stars, and that in terms of writing quality that one, was unquestionably better than this!

The only reason this even gets this rating is that it, at times, did manage to be original and creepy as hell! Too bad those moments were just too few.

And this had an original concept!
So why wasn't it developed? I am sincerely flabbergasted about it! Was this edited?
If so, the author should definitely ask for his money back.

Let's talk about how it begins...

The introduction to the "major" fairy tale creatures that we will be reading about was just too poor, character wise. It was just your basic fairy tales stereotypes. Especially with the first character: Red Riding Hood.

The creepiness factor was not enough to keep me reading the story, especially not with the headache that the writing was giving me.

There were some original points that I appreciated, _ the asylum per se, the guards_ but the writing was so basic! There were so many missing words, and the characters were so undeveloped, than honestly reading this became  a chore.

Here, I'll leave you with some examples:

    "To be poor abandon children in the forest, left to the whims of the nearby witch in her gingerbread house (pg. 8)

                             What?!

    "She felt so at home here, the other children of the village thought her strange and sneered when they saw her go by" (pg 11)

Did you mean to say:  She felt so at home here, despite the fact that the other children found her strange, and sneered at her, whenever they saw her go by. (??)

I can ignore a certain amount of things in arcs. I am not that of a literary snob.
There will always be some grammatical mistakes in texts that are going to  be ignored.

Hey, I make them all the time!  But this was just too much! And if I excuse the occasional error, I don't want to have anything with stories that don't seem to have been edited...

    "Ever since her father had succumbed to a wasting infection the previous year, her mother’s wits were lost to everlasting grief; the girl had found refuge in solitude"

wow...

    "The girl losing her father and her grandma a son gave strength to the other."

Headache.

Just couldn't get into this one. Maybe it wasn't the right timing...I'll try it again later in the year.

So I've never read or heard of "The White Bride and the Black Bride," but I decided to still read this book. When I read the synopsis, I realized that it sounds a lot like "Cinderella." In both the mother dies, father remarries, the stepmother is terrible, the father dies, and the stepfamily hate the daughter. The only thing that keeps me from thinking that they're the same stories is that "Cinderella" is French and this story is German.

I started off liking this book pretty well. I felt bad for Rose, both of her parents were dead and she had to put up with her stepmother, Ombrine, and sister, Desiree, who treated her terribly. They only things she has left are her nurse, who Ombrine eventually fires, the statue of Artemis, and the purple roses that grew in the garden after her mother's death. The other story that happens is of a young king whose wife dies during her pregnancy.

I was worried from the beginning that Rose and the king would end up together, but I'll get to that later. Rose grows up and when tended to her roses, her long lost half-brother shows up. They don't realize who each other is, but he buys some of the flowers. Rose looks just like the dead queen, so the king has her sent to him. However, Rose goes missing and Ombrine uses magic to make Desiree look like her stepsister. Desiree, pretending to be Rose, and the king marry. Rose was turned into a doe, and watches all of this happen.

After a couple months, Desiree pretends to be pregnant and tells the king to kill Rose the deer, who he has become close with. While trying to kill Rose, Desiree is killed and her glamor falls. Rose turns into a human again and the king realizes his mistake. Rose could have stayed a deer and become the mate of the deer leader (?), but she chooses to become a human. They don't get married, because Rose doesn't want to. However, the eventually do get married. I was not happy about that.

I can't believe I used a Taylor Sift gif cause I can't stand that bitch.

But I love Anderson Cooper!

I'll add a third!!

Rose

I liked you, until you married the king. Dumbass. He only likes you cause you look like his DEAD WIFE!!!

Ombrine/Desiree

They're pretty much the same person and I hated them both.

The King

I think his name was Jean-Marc or something, but I think it should be Dick-Head instead.

Overall, I didn't like this and the only thing enjoyable was the purple roses. I love roses so much! I hope the other books in this collection can lift my spirits!