By Stacey Jay
Princess of Thorns is an interesting mash-up of the Sleeping Beauty and Swan Prince fairy tales.
Aurora, the daughter of the famed Sleeping Beauty, has been blessed or cursed depending on your viewpoint by her mother just before her mother’s death. With these fairy gifts, Aurora has the power to take back her throne from the usurping Ogre Queen and the ability to save her world from darkness. To do so, she needs the help of Niklaas, a prince who is doomed to become a swan on his eighteenth birthday if he can’t get Aurora to marry him. With aligned interests, the two should be able to work together, but that wouldn’t make for a very interesting story. Instead, the two work at cross-purposes and flat out lie to one another in an effort to preserve their secrets and respective curses.
I found this book to be quite an enjoyable read in the vein of Stacey Jay’s other works. Although there is plenty of action and adventure, at its heart, this book is a romance. Through the first person narration, we get to see as each character comes to terms with their own failings and feelings.
I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys either retold fairy tales, teen romances, adventure books, or all three.
