Twelve Days of Faery

Shards of a Broken Sword, Book 1

By: W.R. Gingell

Narrated by: Nick Howden-Steenstra

King Markon of Montalier is at the end of his tether. His son, Prince Parrin, is afflicted with a rather nasty curse that slaughters, maims, or brutally attacks any woman with whom he so much as flirts. After the rumor that sweeps around the kingdom, promising that any woman breaking the "curse" will be eligible to marry the prince, there is no shortage of willing volunteers. Unfortunately, there is also no shortage of bodies piling up.

Markon needs to do something, but what? Can a visiting enchantress from Avernse help, or is she simply another accident waiting to happen? And will Markon be able to give her up to his son if she does break the curse?

Twelve Days of Faery is the first novella in the Shards of a Broken Sword trilogy.

©2015 W.R. Gingell (P)2017 W.R. Gingell

Everything a fairy tale should be

Reminiscent of Diana Wynne Jones and Patricia C Wrede, this story is a must for lovers of all things fairy tale.

Just what a faerie tale should be

This story was charming and clever and whimsical and warm. It strikes exactly the right tone and stays true to it throughout. I very much enjoyed it.

Enjoyable

I did find the narration too fast, which isn't typical for me. I'm a little more likely to speed up a narration than slow it down, but in this case, I dropped it to 85% to give it a pace that seemed more in keeping with the very thoughtful king narrating it. The diction didn't suffer over much for it.

I loved the king and liked Althea for him. It was quickly obvious she was way too mature for the prince, and her backstory was such that she deserved someone who would dote on her.