Scan barcode
A review by booksarethenewblack
Liar's Kingdom by Christine Calella
4.0
All I knew about this book was that it was a retelling of Cinderella. Most of the time, it’s hard to surprise with a retelling, but this one surprised me! This story took me down a different path, and I had so much fun figuring out where it was going. Just a heads up: there are some dark parts to the story.
Ell is still an orphan and under her stepmother/sister’s thumb. She hates her life and would love to get away. One day, a prince shows up with a glass slipper. There’s no way it would fit anyone, but it fits Ell. She is now living a life of luxury as the next princess. The only problem is that it was not her slipper. She has never met the prince before and is living a lie. It sets her down a path of trying to keep her lie under cover and agonizing over what the right thing to do is.
It was fun seeing how the parts of Cinderella’s original story are in this retelling. I enjoyed how it was so different than the original story. I adored many of the characters. There are times that I think we could have delved into character development. I wanted to know much more about Bayard and Maxim’s past. The relationship between Ell and Bayard was so sweet and caring. I wish we could have had more time with Maxim to get to know him better. The women were the stand-out characters in this story. I don’t want to say too much, but she’s got quite the girl gang.
There are a lot of things that I would have loved to know more about. This could easily have been a couple more books. I do appreciate the standalone story. With that being said, I would have loved to know what happened to certain characters and more about the magical creatures. There’s potential for some great novellas to come out of this story.
Overall, I thought this was a great book! I read through it rather quickly because I had to know what happened next. Some things could have been expanded on, but it didn’t take from my enjoyment. I enjoyed this one and look forward to what Calella writes next!
Many thanks to TBR and Beyond Tours, the publisher and Netgalley for the e-arc. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Ell is still an orphan and under her stepmother/sister’s thumb. She hates her life and would love to get away. One day, a prince shows up with a glass slipper. There’s no way it would fit anyone, but it fits Ell. She is now living a life of luxury as the next princess. The only problem is that it was not her slipper. She has never met the prince before and is living a lie. It sets her down a path of trying to keep her lie under cover and agonizing over what the right thing to do is.
It was fun seeing how the parts of Cinderella’s original story are in this retelling. I enjoyed how it was so different than the original story. I adored many of the characters. There are times that I think we could have delved into character development. I wanted to know much more about Bayard and Maxim’s past. The relationship between Ell and Bayard was so sweet and caring. I wish we could have had more time with Maxim to get to know him better. The women were the stand-out characters in this story. I don’t want to say too much, but she’s got quite the girl gang.
There are a lot of things that I would have loved to know more about. This could easily have been a couple more books. I do appreciate the standalone story. With that being said, I would have loved to know what happened to certain characters and more about the magical creatures. There’s potential for some great novellas to come out of this story.
Overall, I thought this was a great book! I read through it rather quickly because I had to know what happened next. Some things could have been expanded on, but it didn’t take from my enjoyment. I enjoyed this one and look forward to what Calella writes next!
Many thanks to TBR and Beyond Tours, the publisher and Netgalley for the e-arc. All thoughts and opinions are my own.