Early Review: Wickedly Charming - Kristine Grayson

Genre: Contempory paranormal fantasy fairy-tale romance
Pages: 352
Publication: May 1st 2011 Sourcebooks Casablanca

Cinderella's Prince Charming is divorced and at a dead-end in his career, so he opens a bookstore and travels the land ordering books and discovering new authors. Still handsome and still charming, he has given up on women, royalty, and anything that smacks of a future.

Mellie is sick and tired of being called the Evil Stepmother. She did her best by her stepdaughter Snow White, but the girl resented her to no end and made all kinds of false accusations. Neither of them believes in happily ever after anymore, but both of them believe in happily for the moment...

My thoughts:

I found this book charming and sweet. It was fun to read, and I liked her takes on fairytales and what isn't always told in them.

It takes place in our world, but what we do not know is that there are more magical kingdoms in another dimension of some sort. Prince Charming left his kingdom, because what else was there to do than to wait for his dad to die. These "fairy-tale" characters also live for a long time. He went through a painful divorce with his Ella, it was not a match made in heaven. Poor Charming is sure charming but he is also a nerd that loves books (oh he won my heart at once there!), his hair is not as thick as it used to be, and as Ella pointed out his weight is no longer perfect. So he is a normal man, just still very charming, and I liked him. Then we have the wicked stepmother, yes Snow White's stepmum, though she is not as evil as those wicked Grim brothers made her out to be. There is another story there, and I did feel sorry for her and the bad rep she got. Sure she was a bit pushy at first, but she calmed down and I liked her. They were just two people with painful pasts and they wanted more to life.

After having finished this book I did hope that Grayson will go back to this world and write about more characters.  What I definitely liked was when they talked about the Snow White story, because it sure is icky that the prince wanted a dead woman, what did he actually want to do to her? Oh the story will tell you, the real story. Amusing and disturbing. A great spin to stories we all know.

Conclusion:

It was an amusing story to read. Sure they were slow to fall in love, but who could blame them. But it was there from page 1 so I just had to wait for that HEA, a more realistic HEA than the fairy-tale ones they knew by heart. I would read more by this author. At the end I was charmed, wickedly charmed.

Rating:

Quick read

Cover:

It does look good, but either I wanna see his face or cut him out..and is that one of Chris' guys?


-----

My Flash Fiction entry


And the winner of The Untied Kingdom is: Anna
                                                            who has been notified