Spelled

Spelled

by Betsy Schow

Dorothea is trapped in her Emerald Palace, never to be free to walk the realm, just because of a stupid curse put on her great-grandmother by a young witch who didn't even know to curse someone correctly. She literally can't even walk out of the doors of the palace, since they close automatically if she even gets near them.

When Prince Kato shows up and states that he has to marry Dorothea in order to save the realm, that's just too much for Dot to handle. She's really tired of people telling her what to do.

She wishes on a star and everything goes nuts.

Magical rules are breaking left and right. Dot's parents disappear, leaving only their crowns spinning on the floor. Beauty turns into a beast, complete with golden gown. And Kato turns into a baby chimera.

With only the help of a few words from the Green Witch, a kleptomaniac assistant, a pair of Han Christian Louboutin heels, and a very hungry, very quickly growing chimera prince, Dot must travel the realms to find out how to cure magic, while running from the very angry Grey Witch who is intent on killing her.

She had better come up with a plan soon or everything will be forever pixed.

Final thoughts: Cute idea, but it gets bogged down in its own cleverness. There are constant references to fairy tales, as well as a few non-fairy tales (Quasimodo, for instance). Most of the characters are references to L. Frank Baum's Oz creations. There are some inconsistencies like needing wisps to light the ball, as there is no electricity, but they do have magically powered vacuum cleaners (upgrades from brooms). There are also a few typos, as well as formatting issues when downloaded to the Kindle that included having the first letter of the first word of each chapter cut off the word and then placed somewhere in the middle of the second line. Most of that is easily fixed, though. Each chapter seems to be its own cliffhanger and there's an epilogue that sets up a sequel, but I'm not sure I want to read it since it really takes a lot of effort to deal with all the clever references and creature names that fill the pages. The plot definitely has good moments and I really grew to like Dot by the end, but I'm just not able to rave about this one. Decent read. Cotton candy.

Rating: 3/5