The Glass Queen by Gena Showalter

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

I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

The Glass Queen by Gena ShowalterThe Glass Queen by Gena Showalter
Published by Inkyard Press on September 29, 2020
Genres: Adult, Fairy Tale Retelling, Fantasy, Romance
Pages: 552
Source: Publisher
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5 Stars

Dare to enter the Forest of Good and Evil, where strength is weakness and weakness is strength. Don’t miss book two of New York Times bestselling author Gena Showalter’s magical, romantic and fascinating fairy-tale series, in which the fairy tales we know and love are prophecies of the future…

Pitied.

Sickly.

Unfit to rule.

Princess Ashleigh Charmaine is known as the Glass Princess, fragile enough to shatter with a whisper of wind. Born with a weak heart, she dreams of being treated like anyone else. Unlike her headstrong sisters, she received no magical ability at birth and lives every day expecting to die. Until an oracle announces that Ashleigh is fated to play the part of Cinderella, wed a handsome royal and save the Kingdom of Sevon from the evil king and queen who once ruled the land.

As war rages, Ashleigh begins to doubt her role in the fairy-tale prophecy. Animals despise her, she can’t carry a merry tune and she has zero social graces. Worse, the king she’s supposed to enchant is the newly crowned sovereign of the winged warriors known as the Avian…and he despises her, too.

When Ashleigh develops a terrifying magical ability to commune with dragons and create fire from air—a power she cannot control—she must work with King Saxon to save their kingdoms and their lives. By the stroke of midnight, she must warm his icy heart…or forever break her own. Will Ashleigh ever become the queen she’s prophesied to be…or will she lose everything she’s come to love?

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

Heather

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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

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