Inside cover blurb:
A kingdom burns. A princess sleeps. This is no fairy tale.
It all started with the burning of the spindles.
No.
It all started with a curse…
Half sisters Isabelle and Aurora are polar opposites: Isabelle is the king’s headstrong illegitimate daughter, whose sight was tithed by faeries; Aurora, beautiful and sheltered, was tithed her sense of touch and her voice on the same day. Despite their differences, the sisters have always been extremely close.
And then everything changes, with a single drop of Aurora’s blood—and a sleep so deep it cannot be broken.
As the faerie queen and her army of Vultures prepare to march, Isabelle must race to find a prince who can awaken her sister with the kiss of true love and seal their two kingdoms in an alliance against the queen.
Isabelle crosses land and sea; unearthly, thorny vines rise up the palace walls; and whispers of revolt travel in the ashes on the wind. The kingdom falls to ruin under layers of snow. Meanwhile, Aurora wakes up in a strange and enchanted world, where a mysterious hunter may be the secret to her escape…or the reason for her to stay.
Thoughts:
All weird plot devices aside (One sister is blind and the other has no voice or sense of touch? What’s the metaphor there?), this is a great book about the bond between two sisters (not gonna mention Frozen, not gonna mention Frozen…oops).
Spindle Fire has a fast-paced plot with a lot going on and each chapter alternates among different characters. Sometimes it did seem to move a bit too quickly, glossing over certain elements of the story. I also found the Isabelle/Aurora story line a lot more interesting than Malfleur and her sister’s.
But I did love the dream world!
Overall, I wasn’t totally in love with it, but I’ll probably read the second one, if the cover is as cool as this one.
Plus: We finally get an imagining of what happens to Aurora while she’s sleeping! Great cliffhanger ending too.
Minus: I did want to hear more about Malfluer’s awesome dark magic?? Hopefully we’ll get that in the sequel.
If you like this book, try:
Entwined by Heather Dixon- Also a fairy tale retelling (The Twelve Dancing Princesses) featuring sisterly bonds.