I had high hopes few years back when I first found out about this Kindle freebie from some friends at Shelfari (still miss Shelfari). It is one of the first Kindle freebies that I downloaded in general. For some reason I thought this story as a part of a magical fantastical universe since the author did some other fairy tale retelling like Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella. Pulling this title for my October TBR Jar Draw was a surprise as well since I thought all my TBR Jar Draw titles were physical copies only.
SummaryThe initial surprise effect got me into reading. First half of the book I felt like I was missing something. I kept waiting for some fantastic element to lift up the book as a whole. I found much of this book to be chaotic. The main character was highly unusual in its quirky composition. Character as a whole seemed forced in the cliche of many seen before funny traits. the problem was that there were so many quirky things that it was hard to keep up with them all. For this reason the character seemed off and I as a reader had problems with connecting with her.
What kept me giving this book more chances was the expectation of the fairy tale elements. When reading fantastic literature I try to keep an open mind and figure out the authors ideas and world building in general. The fantastic elements never came though. The story introduced a royal family Habsburg Lorraine heir and the most fantastic thing that happened is Austrians voting back their monarchy to something like that of Great Britain.
Schönbrunn Castle, Wienna, Austria
While the first half of the book was chaotic the second seemed a bit more composed although this might be due to the plot and character familiarity. There were so many missed opportunities for this book to be amazing and informative. I even held back at “curtain down” love scenes. The more I think about it the more I’m inclined to lover the rating even further just for all the unused potential in the story.
