Tag: Romance

Like I mentioned last week, I was able to predict who the focus of the next book in the Transplanted Tales series would be due to more page time for a certain character. The cover of The Better To See You also kind of gives it away, and the title itself clues you into its biggest supporting character. 

Lavender Seely, former fairy godmother to Cinderella, has been sober for a year. Getting sober has been great for her mental health, but not for her magic. An accident she caused due to a burst of faulty magic results in her needing to leave Chicago and find a safe haven until things calm down. Red sends her across the country to a remote community of tales, characters who have chosen to live amongst themselves, free of humans, where they can also mostly govern themselves. In this village, Lavender should be far enough away that the death threats promised by the victim of her uncontrolled magical burst should go unfulfilled. However, Lavender doesn’t even make it to the destination Red relayed to her before she gets into trouble. 

This is a passionate story of two individuals who have had a very rough life since coming over. They have both suffered immensely, but in vastly different ways. It seems that the old saying misery loves company rings true here, as these two sad souls find solace in each other. I don’t want to say anything else, you will just have to read and see for yourself. I really enjoyed the pairing in this story, I wasn’t expecting it, but it works surprisingly well.

Even though I am an old school paper and ink book reader, I did enjoy reading this digital only novella in the Transplanted Tales series. It’s very short, I think I got through the entire story in less than two hours, but I was dying to read more of Red and Grimm and this satisfied the need.

This tale begins two months after the conclusion of Red, and things seem to be going well for the law enforcement officers. There is something hanging over Nate’s head, however, and it is not the fact that there has been no trace of Dracula since he disappeared, plus, combine that with the still missing corpse of the mysterious witch. Nate committed a serious crime in the world of Reapers and he has been waiting to see what his punishment will be and wondering when exactly they will be coming for him. The stubborn Tess Little notices that Nate has not been himself lately, and even though he tries to warn her off she insists on being involved.

I loved getting more background information on Nate, he has an evil origin story and centuries of history making up who he is and how he got to where he is now. It’s incredible that he turned out to be such a decent person. Grimm Consequences is also a great bridge between Red and the next book in the series, The Better To See You, because I was able to predict who the focus of the next novel would be and it fit in really nicely in terms of the flow of the story. I will actually be posting my review of that story next week, so if you are ready for more, come back and read my thoughts on it. 

I have been looking forward to reading the Transplanted Tales series for a very long time. I finally collected all the physical books, and downloaded the one tale that is digital only, and felt prepared to begin. 

All your favorite fairy tale characters have been taken out of the fantasy worlds they live in and have been forced to live amongst ordinary, mortal humans in the real world. It all started when a few magical beings were messing around, causing a spell to go wrong. The Little Red Riding Hood we grew up reading about is now Enforcement Officer Tess “Red” Little working for the Chicago branch of the Fairytale Management Authority. She is all grown up, and is as tough as the leather jacket and combat boots she wears make her look. The story begins with Red trying to bring in a tale that was breaking his parole, nothing she hadn’t done before. After things don’t go as planned, her bad night becomes even worse when she is put on a new case. A few tales have been murdered recently, and the top three suspects all happen to be former lovers of Red. Even though she considers investigating her former flames to be a conflict of interest, her temporary partner, Nate Grimm, believes her connection to the suspects is exactly what will lead them to getting the answers they are looking for. They are strapped for time, as there are more attacks and murders happening by the day, and it takes a physical and mental toll on everyone involved.

I loved that the characters in this book didn’t consist of only the very well known fairy tales that nearly everyone knows of, such as Cinderella. There were also characters from classic literature and Medieval legends and other children’s stories. It made the story all the more interesting to have some less well known fictional characters, like throwing in a mention about a random sailor from Moby Dick for instance. This was an amazing thriller style mystery, with just the right amount of magic and romance. Yes, it does get a little spicy. It was very mild compared to what I usually get into, but I cannot fault it at all due to how great the story was. I cannot tell you how much I am looking forward to reading the next tale in this series, of which Detective Grimm seems to be the main character. I am very much going to enjoy seeing more of him and you can see what I have to say about Grimm Consequences next week.