CBR4 Book 16: "Entwined" by Heather Dixon

Page count: 480 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Date begun: February 15th, 2012
Date finished: February 15th, 2012

Azalea is the heir to the throne of Eathesbury, a kingdom once ruled by a wicked sorcerer rumoured to steal people's souls. Her long-time ancestor was part of the rebellion against him, and succeeded in defeating him. While she may be a princess, she has ten sisters, and her family eat oatmeal for breakfast most days. Still, Azalea has come of age, and is looking forward to balls and suitors and most important of all, dancing, which she and all her sisters adore. Then her mother dies in childbirth, after a long illness, and while Azalea has yet another little sister, she and the other princesses are overcome with grief.

Their grieving is not made easier when they are told they have to wear mourning black for a year, all the windows and mirrors must be covered, the clocks must be stopped and there will be no socialising, balls or dancing for the entire year. The king, their father, grows distant and dismissive, and rides off to war for the first few months after their mother's death. While he is away, the princesses find one of the magical hidden passages the castle is riddled with, and a beautiful pavilion surrounded by silver trees, where they can dance the many dances their mother taught them, to their hearts' content. In the pavilion, there is a mysterious, handsome black-clad man, who calls himself the Keeper. He claims to have been trapped there by the wicked sorcerer, but invites them to dance as long as they wish. While they dance, they both remember their beloved mother and forget their grief, and the princesses all swear an oath not to tell anyone of their nightly escapades, or of the Keeper.

As the year progresses, and the king returns, it becomes harder for them to keep their dancing in the mysterious Keeper's pavillion a secret. Yet the oath they all swore keeps them from telling their father the truth, even after his demeanour towards them becomes warmer and more affectionate again. Their tattered dancing slippers bears proof of their dancing every night, but their magical oath keeps them from revealing anything about the secret passage or the Keeper, who takes such an interest in their family, and Azalea in particular. Their oath binds them even when it becomes obvious that the Keeper is not entirely benevolent, and has been stealing away little trinkets from each of the princesses. He needs them to find a magical artifact left over from the rule of the wicked sorcerer and destroy it, so that he can finally be free of the pavilion, and he's not going to let the princesses stop dancing until they do.

Way back in Cannonball II (the first one I participated in), I read Jessica Day George's Princess of the Midnight Ball, which was also based on the fairy tale of the twelve dancing princesses. While the books have some similarities, there are obviously 12 princesses, who sneak away to dance every night, they're all named after flowers (although in this one they're also named in alphabetical order, which is pretty impressive), and there's magic that keeps them from telling the truth and a quest set for suitors to try to figure out their mysterious nightly escapades - the stories are really quite different. The tone of Entwined is generally darker and more sinister. Both books do an excellent job of creating distinct and diverse personalities for the twelve girls - no easy feat, although it must be said, some of the princesses get less "screen time" than others.

Azalea is a great heroine, sensible and strong and caring, and sisters Bramble and Clover (the second and third oldest) are also fun and engaging supporting characters. All the girls are understandably deeply hurt by their father's cold dismissal of them after their mother's death, and when he returns from war, they are at first determined not even to share meals with him. The descriptions of the tiny kingdom, where the royal family are not really showered with riches, but only get fancy food on special occasions, through grants from parliament, create a lovely setting for the story. There are remnants of magic and magical objects, due to the distant past, but mostly, the princesses lives are rather mundane. The various courtly dances described are a nice touch, and the Entwine, which gives the book its title is especially evocative and given sinister significance when Azalea has to dance it with the Keeper.

Of the two fairly tale retellings of the same story, I think this is my favourite. Jessica Day George's book was very sweet, but Azalea and her sisters, and the very sinister villain of this one, win it for me. My biggest complaint is that Azalea and Clover's suitors never even get first names, which seems a bit silly, and makes parts of the book overly formal. But it's a minor quibble, and I shall be eagerly looking forward to more books from Heather Dixon - this was her debut novel.

CBR2 Book 97: "Princess of the Midnight Ball" by Jessica Day George

Publisher: Bloomsbury
Page count: 304 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Date begun: October 21st, 2010
Date finished: October 22nd, 2010

The country of Westfalin (basically like 18th century Germany) has finally won a long and costly war against the neighbouring country of Andalousia (bits of Spain). Galen is the son of a soldier, whose mother was an army laundress. He grew up following the army, and lost his father, mother and little sister during the war. On his way to the capital, hoping to find his mother's sister, he meets an old lady and kindly shares his meagre provisions with her. She thanks him and insists on giving him three presents as thanks. He is given two balls of wool, one black "and strong as an iron chain", one white "like a swan, floating on water", as well as a magical cloak that can turn him invisible. He tries to refuse, but the crone claims his need is greater than hers.

When he arrives in the capital, it turns out that his uncle is prosperous, having made money during the war taking care of the late queen's precious garden. Galen is trained as an under-gardener, and soon meets the twelve princesses of the kingdom, who all love the garden too. While his uncle detests gossip, several of the other gardeners and palace servants tell him of the great mystery of the princesses' dancing slippers. Every third day the princesses are found in their rooms, exhausted, while all their slippers are worn through. Even though their bedroom doors are locked and guarded and they have maids in their rooms. The king is distressed at the extra expense of constantly buying his twelve girls new slippers, but none of his daughters will tell him why the slippers get worn out.

The first time Galen meets Rose, the eldest of the princesses (all named for flowers in the garden that Queen Maude loved), she nearly falls into a fountain, and gets rather wet. He is embarrassed at first, then distressed, as the princess falls ill, first with a cold, then with pneumonia. One by one, her sisters fall ill as well, and even when they are all sick, their slippers end up worn through. It takes the girls months to recover, as they are clearly exhausted by their late night dancing, yet none of them will tell anyone what they do at night.

At his wit's end, King Galen invites foreign princes to his kingdom, offering to let them solve the mystery of the princesses' midnight adventures in return for the hand in marriage of one of the girls. Yet one by one, the princes fail, get infuriated, leave Westfalin, and shortly after die in horrible accidents. As the months go on, and more princes die, the neighbouring countries start accusing the princesses of witchcraft. Galen, who has gotten to know all the girls, and who has befriended and then fallen for Rose, is determined to help the girls, and solve the mystery, before the country is plunged into another war, which would devastate the country.

Princess of the Midnight Ball is a retelling of the fairy tale The Twelve Dancing Princesses. In an interview included in the extras in the book, Ms George says she always wondered about this tale, thinking that if the girls danced their slippers through every single night, they must be exhausted and weary, and from this speculation, her story developed. Even with twelve different princesses, aged between 17 and 6, the various girls have distinct personalities, and it's rarely difficult to keep them apart.

Rose may be a princess, but she is troubled by the burden of taking care of all her younger sisters after their mother's death. While she would prefer to be carefree, she still shoulders the responsibilities given to her, acting as hostess for her father at social functions and surrogate mother. She is helped by her eldest sisters, but none the girls don't have it easy, forced to dance in the court of the King Under Stone first every third night, then every night, even when they are sick to death with flu. If they try to tell anyone what is going on, they are either unable to speak or spout silly nonsense, even when the situation gets serious and the clergy accuse them of witchcraft.

Galen may be of common birth, but he is loyal and resourceful and kind to those around him. As a true fairy tale hero, he is rewarded for his kindness with magical gifts, and these prove instrumental in helping save the princesses from the curse. He is fully aware of the impropriety of an under-gardener being friends with a princess, let alone loving her, but can't help himself, and becomes more and more fond of all the girls the longer he works in the garden. He decides to help the princesses not in the hopes of the king's reward, as he is convinced no king would want his daughter marrying a gardener, but he cannot stand to see the girls suffer any longer, and possibly get excommunicated and convicted of witchcraft.

The story has a mystical quest, helpful old people, an evil villain in a sinister underground kingdom, determined that the Westfalian princesses will marry his half-human sons. It has a brave hero who knits his own socks and scarves and is not afraid to get his hands dirty, and twelve lovely princesses cursed by the foolish decisions of their now-dead mother. I was delighted by Jessica Day George's last fairy tale retelling, Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow, and this one was also excellent. It's also the first book I've read that contains knitting patterns in the back. I am very much looking forward to Day George's take on Cinderella, currently out in hardback, and will buy and read it as soon as it's out in paperback.