Reading, Writing, and What Not: Book Review - The Reflections of Queen Snow White, By David Meredith

So I started to run myself thin with books again, so between scheduled tours I have started to read other things. I love getting copies of books to review. I was approached to read the book that I am reviewing this post and I jumped at the chance. I am a fan of books that are different takes on fairy tales. They always help give a different perspective on the story. I love them.

Book Title: The Reflections of Queen Snow White

Author: David Meredith

Publishing Date: October 2, 2013

Page/Word Count: 155 pages

BLURB:

On the eve of her only daughter, Princess Raven's wedding, an aging Snow White finds it impossible to share in the joyous spirit of the occasion. The ceremony itself promises to be the most glamorous social event of the decade. Snow White’s castle has been meticulously scrubbed, polished and opulently decorated for the celebration. It is already nearly bursting with jubilant guests and merry well-wishers. Prince Edel, Raven's fiancé, is a fine man from a neighboring kingdom and Snow White's own domain is prosperous and at peace. Things could not be better, in fact, except for one thing:

The king is dead.

The queen has been in a moribund state of hopeless depression for over a year with no end in sight. It is only when, in a fit of bitter despair, she seeks solitude in the vastness of her own sprawling castle and climbs a long disused and forgotten tower stair that she comes face to face with herself in the very same magic mirror used by her stepmother of old.

It promises her respite in its shimmering depths, but can Snow White trust a device that was so precious to a woman who sought to cause her such irreparable harm? Can she confront the demons of her own difficult past to discover a better future for herself and her family? And finally, can she release her soul-crushing grief and suffocating loneliness to once again discover what "happily ever after" really means?

Only time will tell as she wrestles with her past and is forced to confront The Reflections of Queen Snow White.

Pros: Great ideas, great back story, great characters

Cons: Dark at times

Overall rating: Highly recommended!

Review:

I know that the fairy tales that were written by the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen were not all rainbows and butterflies. They were not written with the happy ending we all expected at times. I always thought they were used as way to teach and help children know how they should be acting and what to fear. Some were folk tales that were passed on from one person to the next. So when I was asked to read and review this book I jumped at the chance. There is always something good in the remakes people do.

This book is no exception. The author, David, took the tale of Snow White and made it his own. I love that instead of starting with the original story we started years later, after the "Happily Ever After" would have happened. And that is not what Snow White is facing. We get a darker, unhappy Show White here. Her Prince Charming is dead and she is facing her time alone.

The way we get flash backs in the book help us understand how she got to where she was in the story. We get to see how horrible it was for her as a child in the home with her evil stepmother. This take on the story was a great way to see things. We got to see how it all unfolded before Snow White had run from her step mother, and what she had to face in the home once her father died.

Stars: