Penguin - Available NOW, its NEW NEW NEW!
This new offering from Lili St Crow is a very different take on the Snow White fairytale, with a few of our old favourites thrown in (ahem Red Ridding Hood and Cinderella as co-stars much?) Also for good measure are Vampires families that rule like royalty and a whole horde of wonderful beasts and beings.
I have to be honest, she really throws you in the deep end right from the first page with creatures and terms I knew nothing about - I felt lost and more than a bit confused as I tried to navigate this new world that the characters were so familiar with. Slowly but surely however it all became more familiar and with that familiarity came a compulsion to devour, to know 'what next'?!This particular re-telling is dark and Gothic with glowing magic intertwined with technology in a beautiful and sometimes superfluous fashion, charms used to ward off evil or add a sparkle to your hair do. What I found most refreshing about this tale was Camille or "Cami" our main character, found late one night in the snow - battered, bruised, broken and mute, she has a real sense of tragedy to her - jumping to the current day and Cami still struggles with irrational fears, nightmares and an unruly stutter that permeates her every sentence. The damages sustained in her past are as obvious as the scars that mare her body, that fragility and her continued existence speak so much for her strength and spirit ...to read a character that has suffered a dark past that visibly shadows her future brings a necessary element of reality to an otherwise fantastical tale and it is so often the missing ingredient.
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