Release date: Aug 1, 2010.
Excerpt:
Miss Kate Daltry doesn't believe in fairy tales . . . or happily ever after.
Forced by her stepmother to attend a ball, Kate meets a prince . . . and decides he's anything but charming. A clash of wits and wills ensues, but they both know their irresistible attraction will lead nowhere. For Gabriel is promised to another woman—a princess whose hand in marriage will fulfill his ruthless ambitions.
Gabriel likes his fiancÉe, which is a welcome turn of events, but he doesn't love her. Obviously, he should be wooing his bride-to-be, not the witty, impoverished beauty who refuses to fawn over him.
Godmothers and glass slippers notwithstanding, this is one fairy tale in which destiny conspires to destroy any chance that Kate and Gabriel might have a happily ever after.
Unless a prince throws away everything that makes him noble . . .
Unless a dowry of an unruly heart trumps a fortune . . .
Unless one kiss at the stroke of midnight changes everything.
Review:
This is the second book of Eloisa's I read and it didn't disappoint. In this book Eloisa recreates the fairytale of Cinderella with a more realistic flare. Kate aka the Cinderella is not that destitute. The evil stepsister isn't evil; just air headed and a lose woman. The evil stepmother actually a past whore. The fairy godmother isn't magical. The Prince has no kingdom. And the helpful creatures are three overly spoiled Maltese.
In all things considering it's amazing Kate ever landed the prince at all in this story. In fact rather than try to keep Kate away from Prince Gabriel the stepmother practically delivers her to his doorstep with ambiance. This is because Victoria, the stepsister, gets herself pregnant. In order to be able to marry her, her fiancée has to get the approval of his uncle aka Gabriel. Lucky for all parties the prince is holding his betrothal ball and Victoria and Algie are invited. Thus the stepmother has Kate pretend to be Victoria for the event so that no-one will see that she got pregnant out of wedlock. So as you can see Kate had everything going against her. No magic or love was to be expected. It's her own luck that everyone see's through her disguise and Gabriel is intrigued.
My personal opinion of the book was that if it wasn't the godmother Henry it would have fallen quite flat. Kate and Gabriel really didn't have that many dimensions to them. It would have been Gilmore Girls minus Lorelei and the town people. Rory isn't too terribly interesting on her own and needed Lorelei and the extra characters. Thus was the same with the book. Henry was brilliantly funny and helped push Kate to do things she would have never done. She was also the one to set her straight at times. Gabriel also needed Wick and the rest of his crazy relatives to keep him going. Otherwise i believe he would have ravished Kate or headed to a archeological dig leaving her in the dust. Probably both in that order.
I do like Eloisa's writing style though. I'm not a big fan of too many sex scenes and so was appreciative of the fact that they were to the bare minimum.
So final rating: 4 Bunnies. Good story, plot, and characters. The thing was that the main characters were weak at times.
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