Enchanted [Kindle Edition]

Alethea Kontis (Author)

Book Description

It isn’t easy being the rather overlooked and unhappy youngest sibling to sisters named for the other six days of the week. Sunday’s only comfort is writing stories, although what she writes has a terrible tendency to come true.

When Sunday meets an enchanted frog who asks about her stories, the two become friends. Soon that friendship deepens into something magical. One night Sunday kisses her frog goodbye and leaves, not realizing that her love has transformed him back into Rumbold, the crown prince of Arilland—and a man Sunday’s family despises.

The prince returns to his castle, intent on making Sunday fall in love with him as the man he is, not the frog he was. But Sunday is not so easy to woo. How can she feel such a strange, strong attraction for this prince she barely knows? And what twisted secrets lie hidden in his past—and hers?

Editorial Reviews

Review

A Kirkus Best Teen Book of 2012

 

* "A fabulous fairy-tale mashup that deserves hordes of avid readers. Absolutely delectable."—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

 

* "Kontis delivers a fairy-tale mash-up that outright sparkles."—School Library Journal, starred review

 

"Fantasy readers will undoubtedly enjoy the . . . mash-up of these famous stories, spiced with comedy, romance and magical powers."—VOYA

 

"A charming tumble of fairy tales, spiced with humor and sprinkled with true love." —Sharon Shinn, best-selling author of the Samaria series

 

"If Neil Gaiman and the Brothers Grimm had a child who grew up to weave fairy tales, she would be Alethea Kontis. Read this book—it’s an absolute winner."—J.T. Ellison, best-selling author of Where All the Dead Lie

 

"As mischievous a garden full of fairies and twice as clever, Enchanted proves there’s more than life left in the oldest genre in the world—there’s a lot of heart, too." —Sean Williams, New York Times best-selling author

 

"Kontis is a born spell-caster and her work is spellbinding. In the style of great fairy tales, Kontis　has　created a delightful, heartfelt new classic that can charm the sun out from behind the clouds." —Leanna Renee Hieber, author of the Strangely Beautiful and Magic Most Foul series

 

"Alethea Kontis’s debut is full of inventive whimsy. Take your favorite fairytale and spin it to the side, throw in a half-dozen other tales all dancing, and you get this Enchanted ball."—Mary Robinette Kowal, award-winning author of Shades of Milk and Honey

 

"It's the relaxed humor of Kontis' presentation that not only ups the realism of characters unfazed by talking frogs and fey characters but also gives this offering its sweet, distinctive stamp."—Booklist

 

About the Author

Alethea Kontis is the author of two picture books and many short stories. Alethea was a student of science fiction greats Andre Norton and Orson Scott Card, and she has worked in a number of book-related jobs. She lives in Virginia. Visit her at www.aletheakontis.com.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• File Size: 409 KB
• Print Length: 321 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0547645708
• Publisher: Harcourt Children's Books; 1 edition (May 8, 2012)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B005OC2BE2
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #26,974 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 35 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars 3 1/2 Stars for a Confusing Tale June 25, 2012

By V. Canfield TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

I won't bother giving a synopsis of the story since you can read that in other reviews. Instead I'll focus on problems this book had that kept me from enjoying it.

The story itself is a mishmash of fairy tales. This in itself is not a bad thing, but too often it appeared as if the author was trying too hard to make the fairy tale fit without it doing a thing for the plot.

And as far as the plot goes, it was ALL OVER THE PLACE. I wasn't really sure what was even at stake. Sunday meets a frog and the frog turns into a prince who must regain Sunday's love, even though her family hates him. The family hates the prince because once upon a time Jack (Sunday's brother) worked for the prince and killed his puppy. Then there are fairy godmothers turning people into frogs and dogs because of this. But Jack became a hero doing all kinds of amazing things (or so we are told), but he also died (or so we are told on another part of the story).

Is Jack dead, was he a hero, what happened to him and if Jack was able to tell Rumbold (the prince) what to expect after his own enchantment was broken, where did Jack go after that and how was Jack's enchantment ended? We don't know because the author just throws in plot points and never resolves them or gives us more information! Sooo frustrating.

And then somehow the frog prince was once on board Sunday's sister's Pirate King husband's ship, but we don't really find out why or how or what it even meant. There are also fairy sisters introduced with some sort of mysterious relationships with the king that we never really get to understand. Not to mention dialog is thrown in that makes no sense. It was like I reading this while having one too many cocktails. I kept going back trying to make sense of certain scenes, but they just didn't connect.

An example is when Sunday's Aunt (a fairy) shows up to visit. Sunday was just given a ribbon at the market by some mysterious girl. The aunt says, "I see I arrived just in time" and she makes the ribbon disappear. What? Was the ribbon dangerous? Who was the girl? What did Sunday being given a ribbon mean? We don't know. It was just a pointless scene that must have meant something to the author, but since we, as the reader, can't read the author's mind, it means nothing to us.

I hesitate to even get started on the King and the prince both falling in love with two of the sisters, Wednesday and Sunday. So if they all marry, Sunday will have her sister as her mother-in-law and she'll be married to her sister's step-son and he'll also be Sunday's nephew. Gross. And all this in one day!!! Yup, Wednesday meets the King and Sunday the prince (in human form) at a dance and it's love forever more. The King announces his plan to marry Wednesday two days later. Is Wednesday happy, sad, ticked off? We don't know! She's kind of wooden and doesn't say much. And the way the wedding was introduced was, "Oh, by the way, Wednesday is getting married to the king tomorrow." Ugh.

After this huge announcement, Sunday runs off o find her father. Not to talk about her sister marrying a king, but to ask for a story. He tells her one about a girl who gets a wish from a cat. Does the girl wish to save her dying father? No, she wishes for a unicorn instead. Does the girl get the unicorn? No, she gets a cat. Then Sunday cries "invisible tears" (what the heck are invisible tears?) and sobs to her father that she's sorry they never had a cat. What?? Was the author tripping on drugs? What did this story even mean? What was the deal with Sunday's reaction? And if that was some kind of analogy for Sunday falling in love with a prince, it was a poor one.

The story became so convoluted, it became a chore to read. Some readers obviously enjoyed this book, but I only liked some of it. I could see parts that were promising, but it never reached its full potential. If only the author had given us some back story, explained things and kept with a few meaningful plot points, it would have been much better. The author has real writing talent, but the plot development need serious guidance.

35 of 42 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Wonderful Treat! March 21, 2012

By Vixen VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

This was a fantastic book. I thoroughly enjoyed it. A romantic comedy filled with magic and a mixture of all the classic fairy tales.

Pros:
*Characters - I especially loved the Woodcutter family. Such diverse and interesting portrayals. And I just adored the author's use/interpretation of the poem:
"Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace,
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go.
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for a living,
But the child born on the Sabbath Day,
Is blithe and bonny and good and gay."
*Character interaction - Conversation wasn't strained, awkward, or unbelievable. In fact it was usually quite amusing.
*Entertaining mix of comedy, romance, intrigue, and the supernatural.
*Really hooks you in from the start and keeps your attention through til the end.
*Interesting villains, their motivations were not unique, but they-themselves were.
*The writing style is great, very fairy-tale, old fashioned story-telling which really works with the setting.

Cons:
*Plot in and of itself is far from unique, it does pull from a wide variety of stories to make one and that has been done before.
*The book is rather fast-paced. You move from plot point A to plot point B sometimes in the same page, which also means that it was over much faster than you would want.

Don't miss out on this book! If you love fairy-tales this is a must read! And if you don't maybe it will convert you. Excellent book, I will definitely be rereading this in the future and I look forward to reading more of this author's work.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Many times enchanting, but tries to do too much in one book June 19, 2012

By Christina (Ensconced in YA) TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I have had this on my to read list for a while now. I'm a sucker for fairy tales.

Enchanted by Alethea Kontis is an amalgamation of every fairy tale you've ever heard of. The main protagonists are Sunday, the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, and Rumbold, the prince that was enchanted into a frog. From their meeting, there is a whirlwind of balls, giants, dancing princesses, geese that lay golden eggs, both good and evil fairy godmothers, you get the idea.

There are wonderful things about this book. Sunday and Rumbold are both very likeable characters. Kontis intertwines stories that we've heard all of our lives into one story. It's a feat that is difficult with a nice result.

It's funny because as I was reading this book, I thought of Seventh Son by Orson Scott Card (the seventh son of a seventh son). My second thought was that it almost felt like a bunch of creative writing contest entries strung together. The author's note at the end reveals that Card was in her mind and that she did enter several fairy tale contests.

Many times during this book, I was for lack of another word, enchanted. But other times, I just felt she was trying to do way too much in too little space. I loved all the references, but I almost felt in fairy tale overload. It's a difficult balance to maintain, and I'm not sure she quite succeeded.

That said, it was a book well worth reading, and I'm not sorry that I undertook this adventure. Kontis has a rich imagination that will serve her well.

More About the Author

New York Times bestselling author Alethea Kontis is a princess, a goddess, a force of nature, and a mess. She's known for screwing up the alphabet, scolding vampire hunters, turning garden gnomes into mad scientists, and making sense out of fairy tales.

Alethea is the co-author of Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark-Hunter Companion, and penned the AlphaOops series of picture books. Her short fiction, essays, and poetry have appeared in a myriad of anthologies and magazines. She has done multiple collaborations with Eisner winning artist J.K. Lee, including The Wonderland Alphabet and Diary of a Mad Scientist Garden Gnome. Her debut YA fairy tale novel, Enchanted, won the Gelett Burgess Children's Book Award in 2012 and was nominated for both the Andre Norton Award and the Audie Award in 2013.

Born in Burlington, Vermont, Alethea now lives in Northern Virginia with her Fairy Godfamily. She makes the best baklava you've ever tasted and sleeps with a teddy bear named Charlie.

You can find Princess Alethea online at: www.aletheakontis.com.