The Glass Queen by Gena Showalter

Posted 29 September, 2020 by Heather in Blog, Book Review, Heather, Heather Book Review / 0 Comments

Fairytale retellings aren’t something that I seek out, but I’m very glad that I read Gena Showalter’s The Glass Queen, featuring the story of Cinderella retold in a way that I certainly didn’t expect. In this second installment of her Forest of Good and Evil series, Princess Ashleigh Charmaine is sickly and unwanted from birth, her only hope to live was her mother summoning a witch to hopefully bestow magic upon her to give her strength and keep her alive. But when an oracle announces that Ashleigh is destined to play a part in the Cinder prophecy, her father keeps her under his thumb yet doesn’t treat her any better than dirt underneath his shoes. Even the Avian prince she should be bound to, Prince Saxon, despises her as soon as he sees her at her mother’s funeral.

Princess Ashleigh was a fantastic character. She never gave up no matter how badly her father or anyone else treated her, and even when she was sent away to live elsewhere, she made the best of it until she was called home. She was a passionate, smart woman, and although she was born into a weak body, she didn’t let that keep her down. Her fierce attitude and spark intrigued me from the first pages.

The slow burn relationship that develops between Ashleigh and Saxon was such a mystery that unraveled throughout the book. They are involved in a way that I didn’t expect, and it was a tangled web for those two–along with Saxon’s family–to get past.

I give The Glass Queen a five out of five. I really loved that this book has so much to enjoy: enemies to lovers romance, angsty backstabbing where you don’t know who’s your friend or foe, dragons, magic, and lots of battle scenes. One thing that had me scratching my head was the character Everly and her modern day way of speaking, but I guess she was the main character from the first book so that was all covered there. It wasn’t explained at all in this installment. While this is billed as YA, I’d say it skews on the older end of YA for sure. This definitely was the Grimm version of the fairytale, not the Disney version, and I enjoyed every page.

Find THE GLASS QUEEN

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iBooks | Books-A-Million | Kobo | Google | Book Depository | Goodreads

About Gena Showalter

Gena Showalter is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author whose teen titles have been praised as “unputdownable.” Growing up, she always had her nose buried in a book. When it came time to buckle down and get a job, she knew writing was it for her. Gena lives in Oklahoma with her family and a menagerie of dogs. Become a fan on Facebook and visit her website at genashowalter.com.

Connect with Gena Showalter

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Instagram

Bio
Latest Posts

Heather

I'm a PhD chemist who loves sarcasm, music, and books-paranormal, mystery, thriller, suspense, horror, and romance. Most of my free time is spent at the martial arts studio these days--whether practicing Combat Hapkido or reading books while watching my son's Taekwondo classes, or even working up a sweat with Kickboxing for fun. Goodreads