Book Review: The Sevenfold Spell by Tia Nevitt

Title: The Sevenfold Spell (Book 1 of the Accidental Enchantments series)
Author: Tia Nevitt
Publisher: Carina Press
Release Date: 09/27/2010
ISBN: 9781426890604








If you're a fan of fairy tales or even if you're not, you've more than likely heard the tale of Sleeping Beauty or seen one of the many different film versions of it. You know the princess, the good fairies, the evil fairy who conspires to commit murder by spinning wheel, as well as the prince who eventually breaks the spell & wins the girl. But what about the other people, the ones who are hurt by the destruction of the kingdom's spinning wheels?

Nevitt gives us her own interpretation of this well loved fairytale, choosing to focus on a plain young spinner-in-training rather than on the princess Aurora. Our heroine of the tale is Talia, a hopelessly plain girl with a face full of warts who has no prospective suitors... save for one boy. When the ban on spinning wheels ruins her already slim chances of getting his father's approval, Talia sees her young friend being sent away to a monastery & decides to give him the only thing she has left: her maidenhood. From that moment on the tale of Sleeping Beauty begins to take its toll on all of the kingdom's inhabitants, pushing Talia ever closer to that inevitable moment where both her future & the Princess Auroras are entwined.

Fans of fairy tales will be excited to read this new interpretation because it's always fun to see how people can re-imagine these tales. All will be drawn into Nevitt's energetic & intriguing storytelling abilities. Many readers will love that the focus falls on a heroine who isn't perfection itself & that doesn't decide to sit & pine away for one person. Talia's actions aren't always the best but she doesn't sit & mope or wait for someone to sweep her off her feet. Nevitt also tackles the story with a sense of humor that many (myself included) will appreciate & find themselves laughing out loud at.

The only real complaint some might find is that while the ending is a satisfying one, it felt a little out of joint with the tone the story had been having until that point in time. This might be due to the story's length- it's only about 70 pages long, so the tale does progress very quickly. It's still a fun story overall & well worth the purchase so you can read & re-read this incredibly addictive story. With Nevitt promising more stories in this series I can only hope that I'll enjoy them as much as I did this one.

(ARC provided by Netgalley)