Review: Utterly Charming - Kristine Grayson

Genre: Contemporary romance meets fairy tale
Pages: 320
To Be Published: October 1, 2011 (2000)
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Source. For review

Bestselling author Kristine Grayson's fairy tale romances bring the classic stories into the present day, where fairy tale characters must grapple with the complexities of modern life as well as their own destinies.

This time when Sleeping Beauty wakes up, she wants nothing to do with the man who kissed her. Consoling Alex Blackstone, the rejected suitor who is a brilliant magician but inept when it comes to women, falls to modern career woman and lawyer, Nora Barr. Nora now has to deal with Beauty's evil stepmother, and the discovery that Alex just might be her own personal Prince Charming...

My thoughts:

What can I say, the title does say it all. This was such a charming book. Nora, our heroine meets Alex Blackstone who is so hot, and she can't stop thinking of him. Too bad he is in love with a woman who he claims to be in a magical coma, but she soon realizes magic is real and fairy tales too.

I liked Nora, even if she was a bit to of a lawyer sometimes. She did not let down her guard, but then who would when meeting a 1000 year old mage, a wicked witch, and a woman in a glass coffin. And I had to like that she did not let Alex or our wicked stepmother get the upper hand of her. Instead she wanted to protect Emma.

Before you all go all oh no! What about poor Emma? Well that is a long story, and just because two kids believed they were in love a 1000 years ago does not mean that is true now. And Alex is always the gentleman, I truly liked that about him. 

It is a romance that in a way is not a romance. It is always there on the fringes because he wants to protect his sleeping beauty, she thinks those two are meant to be, they are both so utterly blind to what is in front of them. The romance therefore is slow to build, but that is good since they get it when they see it.

But what I liked most is how she brought these two worlds together, Magic is real and out there. And fairy tales, well there is always a hint of truth in them, but mostly they are just sweetened beyond words and the true story is lost in time.

Conclusion:

If you want cute and sweet then look here. And if you want that romance with fairy tale vibe over it then you have found the right book. I liked it and would want more.

Rating
Cute

Cover:

cute

Interview and contest: Kristine Grayson - Wickedly Charming

Today I have Kristine Grayson over for an interview. And the end of it there is a giveaway of 2 copies of her new book Wickedly Charming.

Welcome to Mur-y-Castell!

Tell us something about yourself, so we can get to know you better…
KG: I love to read and I love to write.  I have too many cats.  I travel a lot, but I’m really quite shy.  So writing is the perfect job for me.

Your latest release is called Wickedly Charming; can you tell me what it is about?
KG: In it, Prince Charming, newly divorced from Cinderella, falls in love with Snow White’s “evil” stepmother at a Los Angeles book fair.

How did you think of the idea to write about fairy tale characters?
KG:  I’ve been writing inverted fairy tales for years.  I figure nothing is ever quite as it seems—not even fairy tales. So I have a lot of fun with this.

Will we see more fairytale stories from you soon?
KG: Next, Sourcebooks will reissue Utterly Charming, my first fairy tale novel, in which Sleeping Beauty’s Prince Charming falls in love with Sleeping Beauty’s lawyer.  Yep.  My brain isn’t quite normal. 

Who is your favorite fairytale character and why?
KG:  I love the princes charming.  I really do.  They are the Perfect Man for every woman. Or maybe I just watched too many Disney movies as a kid.

You also write under other names. How is it to write in different genres and to use different names?
KG: I didn’t even know what genre was until my friend Kevin J. Anderson (who now writes the bestselling Dune books) told me when we met in college.  Since I don’t really “see” genre, I don’t notice when I’m crossing into a new one.  But as a reader, I have learned that I like some books by certain writers and not others. For example, I love Barbara Michaels, but don’t like Elizabeth Peters—and both are pen names for the marvelous Barbara Mertz.  So I took a leaf out of her book and decided to put my very different books under different names.  My Grayson books are sweet romances. My Kristine Kathryn Rusch novels are all over the map and can sometimes be dark.  My Kris Nelscott books are noir mysteries set in the 1960s.  And I’ve just started a new pen name, Kris DeLake, which will be steamy sf romances.  I’m having fun.

Could you tell me about a little about all the other books you have written?
KG:  If I told you about all the other books I’ve written, we’d be here for weeks! I’ve written about 90 novels.  Many are mysteries, like my Kris Nelscott books. But I’ve also written some mystery/sf crossover novels.  I have a detective series set on the Moon, called the Retrieval Artist. That’s under Rusch. And so are the novels about my kick-butt heroine, Boss.  She appears in Diving into the Wreck and City of Ruins, with more to come.  And then there are the DeLake books, upcoming from Sourcebooks. And I do romantic suspense as Kristine Dexter.  And there’s more. But that’s the shorthand version.

Any advice for aspiring writers?
KG: Write a lot.  Have fun.  And learn the business.  More careers die because a writer doesn’t know business than for any other reason.  A bad book won’t kill you, but failing to understand contracts and copyrights will.  (I write a blog about this every Thursday at www.kristinekathrynrusch.com)

Thanks for stopping by!
KG: Thanks for asking me!

GIVEAWAY

2 winners: Wickedly Charming

1.US and Canada

2. Ends May 29th

3. Just enter or if you wanna make it fun:

comment on the book/interview, or tell me your fav fairytale or anything :)

Winners: Mocha Latte and Melanie

WICKEDLY CHARMING BY KRISTINE GRAYSON – IN STORES MAY 2011

He’s Given Up on Happily-Ever-After…
Cinderella’s Prince Charming is divorced and at a dead end. The new owner of a bookstore, Charming has given up on women, royalty, and anything that smacks of a future. That is until he meets up with Mellie…

But She Might Be the Key to Happily-Right-Now…
Mellie is sick and tired of stepmothers being misunderstood. Vampires have redeemed their reputation, why shouldn’t stepmothers do the same? Then she runs into the handsomest, most charming man she’s ever met and discovers she’s going about her mission all wrong…

It’s only natural that sparks fly and magic ensues when these two fairy tale refugees put their heads—and vulnerable hearts—together…

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Before turning to romance writing, Kristine Grayson edited the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and ran Pulphouse Publishing (which won her a World Fantasy Award). She has won the Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Award and, under her real name, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, the prestigious Hugo award. She lives with her own Prince Charming, writer Dean Wesley Smith, in Portland, Oregon. Her next book from Sourcebooks Casablanca, Utterly Charming will be in stores in October 2011. For more information, please visit www.kristinegrayson.com/ and www.sourcebookscasablanca.com

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?


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My Flash Fiction entry


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