TOP 3: Fairy-tale retellings!

Hello, good Friday to you! You made it through another week, congrats ❤

Today is TOP 3 Friday and I have chosen my top fairy-tale retellings!

3. Ever After High books, written by Shannon Hale

from my Instagram 🙂

Goodreads’ blurb:

At Ever After High, an enchanting boarding school, the children of fairytale legends prepare themselves to fulfill their destinies as the next generation of Snow Whites, Prince Charmings and Evil Queens…whether they want to or not. Each year on Legacy Day, students sign the Storybook of Legends to seal their scripted fates. For generations, the Village of Book End has whispered that refusing to sign means The End-both for a story and for a life.

As the daughter of the Evil Queen, Raven Queen’s destiny is to follow in her mother’s wicked footsteps, but evil is so not Raven’s style. She’s starting to wonder, what if she rewrote her own story? The royal Apple White, daughter of the Fairest of Them All, has a happy ever after planned for herself, but it depends upon Raven feeding her a poison apple in their future.

What if Raven doesn’t sign the Storybook of Legends? It could mean a happily never after for them both.

Judge me, but I loved Hale’s book versions of the episodes! I have watched them all on Youtube and Netflix until season three – I have some catching up to do, haha! Those books were magical for me and helped me understand better the series characters and their motives. I loved Raven and Apple’s relationship even more in the book and I’m shameless to say that I ship them together. I ship a lot of different couples in this series, it’s bizarre. If you have the time, do read this series! You won’t regret it ;D

 

2. The Swan Kingdom, from Zoë Marriot

Goodreads’ blurb:

Shadows have fallen across the beautiful and lush Kingdom. The queen was attacked by an unnatural beast, and the healing skills of her daughter, Alexandra, cannot save her. Too soon the widowed king is spellbound by a frightening stranger – a woman whose eyes reflect no light. In a terrifying moment, all Alexandra knows disappears, including her beloved brothers, leaving her banished to a barren land unlike her own.

Alexandra has more gifts than even she realizes as she is confronted with magic, murder, and the strongest of evil forces. She is unflinchly brave and clever as she struggles to reclaim what she knows is rightfully hers.

This new voice in fantasy weaves a tale rich in visual detail, peppered with a formidable destructive force, and sweetened with familial and romantic love.

This was my first fairy-tale retelling ever and one of the first full novels that I have read in English. Obviously, very special ❤ Unfortunately, I can’t recall most of the story nowadays, a re-read is much needed. What I can say is that it’s based on the story of the princess with twelve brothers transformed into swans and I loved how Zoë did this! ❤

 

1. Tales from the Kingdoms series, from Sarah Pinborough

Goodreads’ blurb for the first book:

Take a wicked queen, a handsome prince, a beautiful princess and a poisoned apple… and now read the true story of Snow White, told the way it always should have been…

I know, so helpful, right? Well, along the way, Sarah re-tells us the stories of Snow White, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Sleeping Beauty and some more. Those books awaken my love for fairy-tales gone bad/wrong and were a turning point on my literary tastes. THANKS, SARAH!! ❤

In February, I’ll read A Court of Thorns and Roses. Let’s see if there will be another edition of this TOP 3 along the year, haha!

That’s it, thanks for reading ❤ Do you like fairy-tale retellings?

Match Made in Mondays: adding a book to the end of a series!

Hello, happy Monday, as would say my lovely friend Audrey, from the Forwards and Bookwords! Last week, I’ve entered her weekly meme, Match Made in Mondays. This is very fun, thanks for hosting it, sweetie!

Today’s theme is:

THIS BOOK/SERIES + one more book: What book/series are you dying to have more of, to the point of you wanting an entire book added on to the end?

I gave this a lot of thought because THERE ARE JUST SO MANY BOOKS! Honestly, it is hard to finish a good book and not wanting another after that. The end may be as perfect as possible for an ending, you will want more, even for just a second.

My hopes bets, however, are on The Tales from the Kingdoms, a series by Sarah Pinborough. It is composed by three books so far (the second is my favorite) and, on an e-mail exchange with Sarah herself some years ago, I was assured that, SOMEDAY, there would be more books to this sequel. Well, This day isn’t here yet, SO I WANT MORE NOW.

This series is about fairy tales going bad and I ship an official couple here, it would be nice to hear more about pretty much everything. Please, Sarah! I heard that 2016 will be a great year! 😦

Anyway, that’s it, haha! Thanks for reading! Do you wish to see one more book added to your favorite series??

Avulse books or box sets: an existential doubt

If you follow me on my Instagram profile (follow me! :D) or read any of the posts in the blog, you may notice that I collect books besides reading and loving them, LOL. This collecting thing is a bit tiresome sometimes, I admit. This post is full of book lovers problems, be prepared.

my The Selection box X my Tales from the Kingdoms books

I’m mostly unlucky with book boxes. I love them, I find them very beautiful and practical, but I usually already have all or most of the books inside of it to make it worth buying it. It’s so dammed frustrating! They take so long to release those that I already got the separate books instead.

I brought here three examples in my collection: The Selection series, Tales from the Kingdoms series and Percy Jackson main series.

The first series that I started among those three was TFTK, in my book reader. I loved it and needed it, but, short in money that I was, several months had passed before I was able to buy the printed copies as well. I bought Charm on a liquidation, then Venom at a used bookstore and then Beauty, on another liquidation. Some weeks ago, I saw a beautiful box with the three books inside at a bookstore and wanted to be dead. It was the economical edition. Dammit, guys 😦

my babies ❤

The second series was The Selection. I also started it in my book reader after nudges from a friend and read them all in a matter of one week. A few months later, Christmas arrived and I was able to buy them all, in a beautiful box set. Points for me /o/

my other babies ❤

The third series, Percy Jackson, was very similar to The Selection, but I didn’t buy the box, as I didn’t find any; I just bought the five books at once and, again, navigating through an online bookstore, yesterday I found the box edition.

While admiting that buying a book at time has lots of advantages, I like the boxes way better. They usually have something more inside and, even when they haven’t, like my The Selection box didn’t, they still are pretty and good for organization in the book shelf.
Unfortuantelly, here in Brazil, they take too long to publish those and I don’t usually have that patience. The only ocasions that I can manage to buy boxes is when I don’t have money for a long time, like months, and them I go and buy the box set later. Oh, and we never know when a saga/author is going to turn into a box set too ://

There’s also the issue of costs. Even when publishers do release boxes, I usuallyt don’t have the money to buy them, as they have a greater cost at once than buying books separatelly 😦

I’ll remaing in my suffer, as not years of theraphy healed my anxiety with certain topics, but I can say that I’m happy to be buying more and more boxes, even in a slow rythm: today I just ordered online a box set from Collector’s Edition with two Austen romances, one Brontë and Little Women ❤

Resuming: I will keep ranting about how boxes are great and expansive, but I still prefer them and I’m still wanting the TFTK box set, LOL.