Synopsis from Amazon:
Love and hate don't matter when a wicked queen wants you dead.
When a stranger crashes into her life and lifts the concealment that has marred her face since childhood, Rosie Avalon leaves everything she knows behind. Pulled into a realm teeming with magical creatures, Rosie must navigate this new, broken world while avoiding capture by the evil queen, who knows there’s more to Rosie than meets the eye.
Bastien is an Untouchable, feared and shunned by all but a handful of elite warriors. His realm has been ravaged by the evil queen’s reign, but he will stop at nothing to save the land he loves, even if it means pushing Rosie past her breaking point.
Thrust into a quest that threatens to destroy her, Rosie’s path is clear: she must sacrifice all she holds dear to save a world on the brink of collapse.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
My Review:
Oh boy, here we go!
I have come to the conclusion that I tolerate the steamy smut from Mary Twomey for the same reason I tolerate high levels of gore and violence from Mark Lawrence--the plot and the main premise is just too dang good.
With Twomey, it started with her Volumes of the Vemreaux trilogy--that one built up the premise to a glorious extent and totally wrecked my emotions while bringing it all to a thundering conclusion. I loved all the characters, I got to know them before things started coming to a head, and I ended up rooting for the main pairing, without reservation!
Now with the Faite Falling series, I was looking forward to another such extraordinary experience. Main character Rosie is grotesquely deformed, and used to living her life that way, brushing off people's negative opinions of her, and clinging to at least the one friend who saw her in any kind of positive light.... And then Rosie loses the necklace her mother had given her, and her whole life changes.
I loved the references to Arthurian legend--Morgan le Fae, the kingdom of Avalon, and Lancelot, to name a few. The concepts of the different races were cool and inventive and characteristic of Twomey's rampant imagination, to be able to pull of something so incredible that you don't want to miss one amazing moment because nothing is at all like anything you've read before! The world of Faite and the magical abilities--even in Rosie, which is why she stayed hidden all those years--and even the uniquely perilous situations that they run into when trying to make their way across the kingdom of Avalon are all stacked up to make me want to keep on reading to find out what happens next!
There were a few things I could have done with less of--for someone who "has never been kissed" and basically spent her whole life being unattractive to everybody, Rosie falls pretty quickly for any of the strapping gentlemen who treat her with adulation and tenderness, and the number of times she ends up in the arms (or the lap) of the "grim and gruff bodyguard type" felt a bit out-of-balance with the amount of actual plot that went on outside those scenes... I don't know, maybe because this book in particular, with the way it needed to set up the rest of the plot, didn't have a whole lot of "down time" for the characters, and whatever "downtime" it did have, it was because she needed his protection, which forced them into very close quarters, which made it awkward...
Bottom line, I'm not as invested in the main characters of this story as I was for Volumes of the Vemreaux, and if I do continue the series, it would be because I can't get enough of Faite (which is very true!) and I just want to see them going up against Morgan le Fae (who is still the villain, even in this version!) with all the hope that she is every bit a spectacular opponent as this build-up would have us believe!
Ugly Girl gets a good ****4 STAR**** rating--not your average fairy tale re-telling, for sure... but the opening salvo of what promises to be a fantastical series! If you like your fantasy with a lot of Strangely Alluring Races and Steamy Lip Teases, you don't mind the odd Sequence of Disturbing Images (and a bit of gross humor by way of Teleportation By Flatulence), and really you're just hungry for an Arthurian Legend that is truly LEGENDARY--then Faite Falling is waiting for you!
Further Reading: (Also By The Author/Folklore Adventures/Epic World-Building/Romance)
The Vemreaux Trilogy--Mary E. Twomey
-The Way
-The Truth
-The Lie
The Untamed Series--Madeline Dyer
-Untamed
-Fragmented
The Red Dog Conspiracy--Patricia Loofbourrow
-The Alcatraz Coup
-Jacq of Spades
-Queen of Diamonds
-City of A Thousand Dolls--Miriam Forster
-Chasing Rabbits--Erin Bedford
The Chronicles of Lorrek--Kelly Blanchard
-Someday I'll Be Redeemed
-I Still Have A Soul
-I'm Still Alive
-Do You Trust Me?
-You Left Me No Choice
Lord of the Wyrde Woods--Nils Visser
-Escape From Neverland
-Dance Into The Wyrd
The LouisiAngel Series--C. L. Coffey
-Angel in Training
-Angel Eclipsed
-Angel Tormented
-Beasts of Babylon--E. A. Copen
-Notna--J. D. Cunegan
Tales of the Fallen--Katika Schneider
-Devotion
Oh boy, here we go!
I have come to the conclusion that I tolerate the steamy smut from Mary Twomey for the same reason I tolerate high levels of gore and violence from Mark Lawrence--the plot and the main premise is just too dang good.
With Twomey, it started with her Volumes of the Vemreaux trilogy--that one built up the premise to a glorious extent and totally wrecked my emotions while bringing it all to a thundering conclusion. I loved all the characters, I got to know them before things started coming to a head, and I ended up rooting for the main pairing, without reservation!
Now with the Faite Falling series, I was looking forward to another such extraordinary experience. Main character Rosie is grotesquely deformed, and used to living her life that way, brushing off people's negative opinions of her, and clinging to at least the one friend who saw her in any kind of positive light.... And then Rosie loses the necklace her mother had given her, and her whole life changes.
I loved the references to Arthurian legend--Morgan le Fae, the kingdom of Avalon, and Lancelot, to name a few. The concepts of the different races were cool and inventive and characteristic of Twomey's rampant imagination, to be able to pull of something so incredible that you don't want to miss one amazing moment because nothing is at all like anything you've read before! The world of Faite and the magical abilities--even in Rosie, which is why she stayed hidden all those years--and even the uniquely perilous situations that they run into when trying to make their way across the kingdom of Avalon are all stacked up to make me want to keep on reading to find out what happens next!
There were a few things I could have done with less of--for someone who "has never been kissed" and basically spent her whole life being unattractive to everybody, Rosie falls pretty quickly for any of the strapping gentlemen who treat her with adulation and tenderness, and the number of times she ends up in the arms (or the lap) of the "grim and gruff bodyguard type" felt a bit out-of-balance with the amount of actual plot that went on outside those scenes... I don't know, maybe because this book in particular, with the way it needed to set up the rest of the plot, didn't have a whole lot of "down time" for the characters, and whatever "downtime" it did have, it was because she needed his protection, which forced them into very close quarters, which made it awkward...
Bottom line, I'm not as invested in the main characters of this story as I was for Volumes of the Vemreaux, and if I do continue the series, it would be because I can't get enough of Faite (which is very true!) and I just want to see them going up against Morgan le Fae (who is still the villain, even in this version!) with all the hope that she is every bit a spectacular opponent as this build-up would have us believe!
Ugly Girl gets a good ****4 STAR**** rating--not your average fairy tale re-telling, for sure... but the opening salvo of what promises to be a fantastical series! If you like your fantasy with a lot of Strangely Alluring Races and Steamy Lip Teases, you don't mind the odd Sequence of Disturbing Images (and a bit of gross humor by way of Teleportation By Flatulence), and really you're just hungry for an Arthurian Legend that is truly LEGENDARY--then Faite Falling is waiting for you!
Further Reading: (Also By The Author/Folklore Adventures/Epic World-Building/Romance)
The Vemreaux Trilogy--Mary E. Twomey
-The Way
-The Truth
-The Lie
The Untamed Series--Madeline Dyer
-Untamed
-Fragmented
The Red Dog Conspiracy--Patricia Loofbourrow
-The Alcatraz Coup
-Jacq of Spades
-Queen of Diamonds
-City of A Thousand Dolls--Miriam Forster
-Chasing Rabbits--Erin Bedford
The Chronicles of Lorrek--Kelly Blanchard
-Someday I'll Be Redeemed
-I Still Have A Soul
-I'm Still Alive
-Do You Trust Me?
-You Left Me No Choice
Lord of the Wyrde Woods--Nils Visser
-Escape From Neverland
-Dance Into The Wyrd
The LouisiAngel Series--C. L. Coffey
-Angel in Training
-Angel Eclipsed
-Angel Tormented
-Beasts of Babylon--E. A. Copen
-Notna--J. D. Cunegan
Tales of the Fallen--Katika Schneider
-Devotion
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