Customer Reviews

The Night Dance (Once Upon a Time)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Rowena, the youngest of twelve sisters, has been held a prisoner in her home, along with her elders, since the day her mother disappeared years ago. While her home is larger than a castle, and quite comfortable, living within the walls of it day after day, never seeing sunlight slowly eats away at Rowena, until she cannot take the imprisonment anymore. So, over the course of a few weeks, she breaks a hole in the wall, and each day, when everyone is preoccupied, she wiggles her way through the hole, and dances in a magical forest. Over time, she invites her sisters to join her. But when their father, Sir Ethan, discovers that their slippers are tattered and torn each morning, he posts a challenge to all the men in the village that whoever is able to tell him where the girls are slipping off to at night, can marry the daughter of his choice. Meanwhile, Rowena has already had her heart captured by Bedivere, a knight who must return the powerful sword, Excalibur, to a mysterious lake. Bedivere wants nothing more than to marry Rowena, but Sir Ethan's challenge is his only way. Now Rowena must choose if revealing her secret to Bedivere is truly worth it...

I have read every ONCE UPON A TIME...book since they were first released. Some are marvelous, while others are mediocre. Suzanne Weyn's THE NIGHT DANCE - based on the story THE TWELVE DANCING PRINCESSES - is one of those installments that is great. The characters are enchanting, and the descriptions of the magical forest, and lake where Excalibur must be returned are magical. Weyn's descriptive talent truly brings the story to life, so much so that the reader feels as if they are dancing alongside Rowena and her sisters in the forest. Overall, this is a magical story. One that must be read by all fans of fairytales.

Erika Sorocco
Book Review Columnist for The Community Bugle Newspaper

Lately, I've been exploring the world of rewritten and revised children's stories, most of which are the fairy tales that most of us grew up with. One of my favorites is by Hans Christian Anderson, about the twelve princesses who drove their father mad by appearing every morning with their slippers in tatters -- after being locked in their bedroom every night.

Sir Ethan finds himself chasing a boar in the middle of a dense forest when the boar rolls on the ground, creating a lake and transforming into a beautiful woman. She is Vivienne, a sorceress from Avalon, and both she and Sir Ethan fall in love with one another. Sir Ethan settles down with her, and builds a home of peace, while Vivienne quickly drops a litter of twins every year, each one a girl, until six years have passed, and there are twelve little girls about the place, that she calls her 'princesses.'

But when the youngest pair are toddlers, Vivienne is wandering in the woods near her home, when she is attacked by her sister, the wicked Morgan La Fay. Morgan imprisons Vivienne in the lake, creating a barrier that prevents her from either returning to the mortal world, or going on to Avalon. And heartbroken Sir Ethan finds himself with twelve motherless daughters to raise.

Thinking that Vivienne has willingly abandoned him and his daughters, he decides to imprison his children in his manor house, by enclosing them in high walls, and never letting them enter the outside world. And the youngest, Rowena, grows up filled with a hunger to break out of the walls that surround her.

When she finds a crack in the wall, she steathily chips away at it until she can escape into the woods. There she meets the one survivor of King Arthur's Round Table -- Bedivere, wounded in mind and spirit, and seeking to return the sword Excalibur to the Lady of the Lake.

How it all ties into the twelve princesses who slip away at night to dance their slippers to shreds is the second half of this short novel. There's not a lot of humor -- save for some antics by Morgan trying to disguise herself as a mouse to discover how to imprison Vivienne and her daughters for good -- and due to the fact that the novel is under two hundred pages in length does not leave a lot of room for character development.

That's one of the major flaws of the novel. While it does have a strong start to the story, by the end, it has all fallen apart. The imagry isn't that vivid, and the entire narrative is forced. The princesses are little more than cyphers, with only the eldest, Eleanore, and the youngest, Rowena, having any sort of things to do besides looking pretty and being rather simple. Even Morgan and Vivienne are rather lifeless, and Bedivere isn't much more than a handsome stud for Rowena to fall instantly in love with, but there isn't any underlaying passion to explain why they fall for one another.

Marketed for young adults in a series called "Once Upon a Time...," I found this one to be a grave disappointment. There's some magic, and the bare bones of the story, but author Suzanne Weyn seems to be having a hard time deciding if she is writing a novel set in the Arthurian mythos, or reworking a classic fairy tale. Robin McKinley in her anthology The Door in the Hedge did a far finer retelling of the story, with far more mystery and magic to it, and in far fewer pages as well.

Summing up, I would only recommend this if you have a teenage reader who is entertained by fairy tales, but otherwise, stay with the original story. It's far more entertaining.

The concept of this book is brilliant: a melding of the fairy tale `The twelve dancing princesses' with some of the legends about the death of King Arthur. Unfortunately, Ms. Weyn's writing skills were not up to the task she set herself. Her prose is consistently stilted and overly ornate with such sentences as: "Rowena still sympathized with the trapped restlessness she knew her sister felt." and "There was a murmur of approval as this seemed like a fun enterprise."

Once I started reading, the story was compelling enough to pull me through. So, if you are willing to endure less than perfect writing for a good story, by all means read this book. If, however, you are like me and would be pained every time you read a sentence like the above, I advise you to skip this one and read `The twelve dancing princesses' by Robin McKinley.

Almost magically, Sir Ethan of Colchester finds himself pulled to Vivienne and is shortly living in a small cottage with his wife and six pairs of daughters beside an enchanting lake. Dismissing claims of his wife being a witch, he cannot altogether ignore her disappearances into the night, until one evening she does not return.

Sir Ethan eventually searches his wife's bearings, finding jewels of all kinds, and sells them to make the beginnings of his fortune. The house is renovated and a wall is built to prevent anything from entering or exiting. But no one can forget the lake, or what was until Vivienne's sudden leaving causes the strange lake to disappear.

As the story unravels itself, the role of Camelot becomes clear. Not only is this a retelling of the Twelve Dancing Princesses, but is a tale of Morgan le Fey, Mordred, Merlin, Arthur, Bedivere, and the Lady of the Lake. It is told in the points of Sir Ethan of Colchester (the father), Lady Vivienne of the Lake (the mother), Sir Bedivere (gorgeous Knight of the Round Table), Eleanore (the oldest), Rowena (the youngest), and Morgan le Fey (the wicked witch). They each tie in their own part to the story, and make it interesting to read. As your learning grows of the dealings in Avalon and the fate of Vivienne, so does your intrigue for the characters and the adventures of Excalibur. And what would a classic fairy tale be without a little romance?

The problem I found is that the culture portrayed was nothing like that in the Arthurian era. The people seemed to hold no respect for someone so great as Bedivere, nor did they seem to care about Arthur and his endeavors. But, nonetheless, it was an appealing story, and my favorite in the Once Upon a Time Series...

"The Night Dance" by Suzanne Weyn is the third installment of the "Once upon a Time" series that I have read. This story takes the fairy tale of "The Twelve Dancing Princesses" and reinvents it by throwing in a myth that blends very naturally, the Arthurian legends. Allow me to explain.

Once there was a man of the military named Ethan of Colchester who became lost in a forest, separated from his men. Upon finding a wild boar he decides to stalk it to take it back to his camp when suddenly a lake appears and from the lake a mysterious beautiful woman. He falls deep into love with the woman and decides to stay, building a small home next to the lake where he and the woman named Vivienne can stay and raise their ever increasing brood of children. Within nine months Vivienne bears Ethan a set of twins, Mathilde and Eleanore. Later she bears another set, Chloe and Bronwyn. Over the next three years she bears him Ione and Isolde, Cecily and Helewise, Gwendolyn and Brianna, and then Ashlynn and Rowena...twelve daughters, six sets of twin girls, in only five years. After this she begins to set out on occasional trips, telling Ethan it is necessary but leaving no more detail than that, until one day she does not return. Ethan, who is heartsick over this loss, finds a bag of treasures that Vivienne left behind and builds his tiny home into a fortress, securing the girls inside... he vows not to lose anymore of those that he loves.

Vivienne, in the meantime, has been trapped under the lake by the magic of her bitter rival, Morgan Le Fey, half sister of Arthur, King of Britain, in attempts to secure the future interests of her son, Mordred. With Vivienne out of commission Mordred can seize the throne, but he only manages to deliver a fatal blow to Arthur and getting himself killed in the process. On the battlefield the last man standing is Bedivere, Arthur's faithful knight, who has lost the use of his one hand. Before Arthur dies Bedivere swears he will return the sword Excalibur back to the lady who gave it to him so, heartsick and bitter, Bedivere sets out to find this lady of the lake.

Rowena, the youngest of the daughters, has found a means of escape from the confines of their home and frequently sneaks out when she is not being watched. On one of her trips she finds a golden scrying bowl which once belonged to her mother. When her sisters discover this they learn that there is a tunnel under their home which leads to a magical underworld where there is music and freedom. But their father discovers that they have somehow gotten out and vows to learn how and decides that if he cannot discover how the girls are escaping perhaps a young man can be induced into resolving the mystery, as long as he can be awarded one of the daughters as his wife.

What Weyn has done is beautiful and well crafted. She has taken two legends that I love dearly and skillfully commingled them in a manner that seems as if it was meant to be. The story flows so well that you forget they were not set up like this from the get go, and the romance that ensues between Rowena and Bedivere is wonderfully tender, you can really feel their desire for one another. This is a fabulous addition to the "Once upon a Time" Series, definitely not one to miss.

None of the books in the "Once Upon a Time" series are what you'd call "great" books - but then, they're not trying to be. They are pleasant, breezy retellings of old fairytales, in which magical elements are either removed or rationalized, with the familiar plots of traditional stories taking place in unexpected settings. The books themselves are beautifully designed, with cover-art by the great Kinuko Craft herself, and would no doubt look great all lined up on a shelf together.

Suzanna Weyn takes the fairytale of "The Twelve Dancing Princesses" and makes the interesting decision to place it in an Arthurian context. Or rather, a post-Arthurian context, considering that the story begins almost directly after the Battle of Camlann, in which Arthur is killed. The sword Excalibur is bequeathed to the last remaining knight Sir Bedivere, who is given instructions to return it to the Lady of the Lake.

The dancing princesses of the title are the daughters of Ethan of Colchester and his magical, mysterious wife Vivienne. There are six sets of twins altogether (and no, I'm not going to name them all), but when Vivienne disappears, Ethan turns his house into a fortress. The girls are locked away in their own home, but naturally become restless with their imprisonment - particularly the eldest and the youngest, Eleanore and Rowena.

Melding these two genres is a surprisingly success, as Bedivere walks out of a legend and into a fairytale, becoming one of the suitors attempting to unravel the secret of the disappearing princesses, and finding that the mystery is linked to his quest to return the sword to the Lady of the Lake. Due to out-of-body experiences that are only partially explained, he and Rowena fall in love, and so it's for her sake that he tries to solve the puzzle.

In such a slim volume, characterization is paper-thin. Apart from free-spirited Rowena and imperious Eleanore, the princesses are interchangeable. Ethan is a rather tyrannical father, but at least with his beloved wife's disappearance, he has a legitimate reason as to why he'd want to keep his daughters in closed quarters. Furthermore, Bedivere himself makes a good hero: he has an injured hand that makes him a tad self-conscious, he carries a sense of "survivor's guilt" considering he's the last remaining knight of Camelot, and there is a character-building scene of temptation in which he's offered his heart's desire in exchange for Excalibur.

However, the love affair between himself and Rowena is hardly convincing. Given lack of conversation between them, and the amount of time each of them spends on admiring the other's physical attractiveness, it seems yet another relationship based on desire rather than friendship. (The "romance" between Eleanore and Edgar, the first suitor, is even worse. Lechery and drunken assault do NOT equal true love). For stories that are essentially romances, none of the "Once Upon a Time" series have done a particularly good job in crafting a touching love-story. For a more appealing look at young love blossoming between a youth and a maiden in this particular fairytale, try Ruth Sanderson's The Twelve Dancing Princesses. She does more in a children's picture book than Weyn does in a chapter book to convince us of a deep connection between the two leads.

Weyn does manage to keep the basic tenants of the original fairytale and rework them in a unique way, such as the dirtied slippers that their father finds every morning, the magical potion that the girls use to ward off potential suitors, Bedivere's invisibility cloak, and even the three forests of bronze, silver and gold that do a lot to build up Bedivere and Rowena's love for each other (it should have been at THIS point that the two declare their love, not before).

She also manages to touch on some of the deeper themes behind the fairytale, such as the freedom that the rebellious girls thrive on when they discover the enchanted island, the repressed sensuality in the girls themselves, the appeal of the wild stag-like courtiers, and the seductive quality of the secret itself.

I do have a rather odd piece of advice for first-time readers of "The Night Dance." Skip chapter two. Seriously - I strongly suggest that you go straight from chapter one to three, as chapter two is merely an oddly placed chapter of exposition that tells us Vivienne's identity, background and whereabouts far too soon in the story. I'm not sure why Weyn chose to give away so many secrets in such a lengthy info-dump, but if you take my advice, then you'll miss nothing drastically important, and instead have the mystery drawn out for a little longer. (Morgan le Fay's secret identity is also given away too soon, but there's no easy way to avoid this).

There are a couple of other nitpicks. My enjoyment of the Arthurian legends compels me to point out that it was the *scabbard* and not Excalibur itself that had healing properties (and in either case Weyn fails to explain why it has no effect on Bedivere's crippled hand) and I winced when I read the description of Rowena having "celery green eyes". I've read of green eyes compared to the sea, or the forest, or heck, even the grass...but celery? However, keeping in mind the entire canon of the "Once Upon a Time" series, "The Night Dance" definitely ranks higher than most. The plot threads tie up well together, chapters are short and swift, and it achieves what it set out to do: tell the story of the twelve dancing princesses in a way that it hasn't been told before.

I really enjoyed this fairy tale combination. I had always liked the tale of the 12 Dancing Princesses but always found them a bit lacking. Why does the father lock them up in their room every night? Why doesn't the father just separate the daughters into different rooms? Why does the father hire strangers to find out what his daughters are doing? Can't he watch over them himself? Why do the daughters feel compelled to go out dancing every night and ruin their slippers? Aren't they tired???

By mixing the fairytale with Arthurian legend Weyn has a way to answer most of those questions. The girl's mother is the Lady of the Lake and is captured and imprisoned by Morgan LaFaye. The girl's father, wild with grief at losing his wife builds a great wall around their home to keep his daughters from getting lost and never coming back in the same way. The youngest daughter, Rowena has inherited some of her mother's magical skill and is desperate to try to get out of the prison of her home. One day she stumbles into Bedivere, the last knight of the Round Table and the bearer of the legendary sword Excalibur. King Arthur entrusted Bedivere with the sword and the mission to return it to the Enchanted Lake and the lady that lives there. Bedivere and Rowena fall instantly in love.

The sisters are eager to escape in the same way Rowena did but their father discovered her exit route and blocked it off. Instead the girls escape into tunnels and caves under their home and discover a lake deep underground. Unbeknownst to them that lake is where their mother is imprisoned. In an effort to distract the girls, Morgan LaFaye weaves a spell that changes their nightclothes into fine ballgowns and for barges to take the girls to a magical island on the lake where they can eat, drink and dance all night long. When they come home in the morning their slippers are ruined and their father is upset at them have left without his knowledge and the fact that he has to foot the bill (pun intended) for their ruined slippers.

Rowena is upset that she can't get back to Bedivere and she suspects her mother is captive beneath the lake but each time she goes down to the caves she is drawn off in the barges and forgets about her intention to search the lake. Finally the girl's father calls for his infamous contest of wits to see which man can figure out how his daughters are getting out every night and in return win one of their hand's in marriage. Luckily Bedivere manages to snag the card that shows he is the suitor for the second night of the trial (or the book might have gone on for far too long) and is able to help set the Lady of the Lake free, return Excalibur to her and win fair lady Rowena's hand and heart.

It's a charming retelling even if it does have a few flaws. As some other reviewers have noted the character development is a little lacking - only two of the sisters have any real role to play and the others are basically about as animated as store manniquins. We don't really get to see much of anyone's reasoning for anything although much of it is implied. On the whole it's not as good as some of the other stories from Weyn but it definitely is worth a quick read.

This book was a pleasant, light read. However, I was dismayed that the author left the plot slightly undeveloped. Also, it seems as if the antagonist is thwarted too easily.
None-the-less, i enjoyed it and it is quite a satisfying read.

The classic fairy tale of the twelve dancing princesses takes a new twist as it is entwined with the final days of Camelot. A man lost in the woods witnesses the formation of a beautiful lake and meets an enchanting beauty. In five years she bears him six sets of twins. Then one night she disappears leaving him to raise the girls alone. While searching for his wife he finds a cache of gold and jewels. He uses this to turn his small home into a fine manor house and set himself up as an importer of finery. But he always worries about losing his daughters so they have never been allowed to leave the grounds. But the youngest, Rowena, has found a small crack in the wall and works to make it large enough to explore outside.

On one excursion Rowena finds a gold-lined bowl that seems magical. In it she sees an image of her mother. The image leads her and her sisters through a trap door into the root cellar and eventually to an underground lake. Nightly visits to the lake lead to enchantments and dancing where they continually ruin the fine silk slippers their father has given them. Their father offers a reward to anyone who can figure out what is happening to his daughters each night. It is through this challenge that a beggar, formerly a knight of the Round Table, gets the chance to find out what is happening to the girl who has haunted his dreams (Rowena) and follow his heart.

The classic tale brings in the fall of Arthur, Morgan Le Fay, The Lady of the Lake and Sir Bedevere in an interesting and consistent manner. Unfortunately the author note mentions researching Fifth Century life and yet mush of the book is crammed with stuff nearly a thousand years more recent. My wife who has been researching the Renaissance and I had many a laugh over some of these references, particularly that the servants have romantic books published in France while I liked the fact that the merchant father had an active trade with China. This is not Bronze Age Brittan, but the England of the King Arthur movies. If you can handle that then I think you will be quite entertained with the way classic myth and fairy tale have been so neatly woven together.

I'm not sure exactly what people thought of the book, but i liked it. I've just started reading the series and the first two books i read were Midnight Pearls and The Storytellers Daughter. Midnight Pearls became my favorite (though i would change who Pearl ended up with). I thought Night Dance would not beat it, but it did. The story was woven very well and thier romance was very nice. I might just be a sap for a true love book, but hey that's what i like. The the best part the ending ended right. I'm glad i bought this book (can't say that for some other ones that collect dust on my shelf). I hope this review helps you and i hope you find this book as intresting as i did.