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Once More Upon a Time is a completely captivating, charming and comedic fairy tale novella about what happens after you find what is supposed to be your happily ever after.
Imelda is one of the twelve dancing princesses. Contrary to popular belief, she and her sisters had good cause to wear their slippers out every night and no, that reason wasn’t a curse. Now that the gardener’s assistant has ‘saved’ them all and ruined her life, she is wondering what to do with herself. Then she, in the manner of all good fairy tale princesses, falls in love.
Ambrose is a prince and a disappointment to his father. He constantly fails at fulfilling his princely duties and instead, always winds up doing something completely unexpected. For example, when Ambrose is sent to kill the dragon harming the family’s patch of heirloom tomatoes, rather than just slaughtering the beast, he talks to him. Ambrose learns the poor dragon is incinerating the delicious delicacies because they had been grown from the poisoned waters of a nearby pool and would kill the population if eaten. In exchange for his charitable endeavors, Ambrose gives the dragon a medal and a job, and now the beast happily incinerates with the full blessing of the kingdom. Ambrose’s older brother had, of course, killed his own dragon and thus laid claim to the throne.
Fortunately, Ambrose attends the wedding of the dancing princess and the gardener, meets her sister Imelda, falls in love, and is offered the throne of the small kingdom of Love’s Keep. As the narrator informs us:
“It is an unoriginal yet instructive name because to protect it and for the land to grow and all the denizens within to be hale and happy, the king and queen must always be in love.”
Ambrose and Imelda are delighted. They are young, in love, royal and have an enchanted kingdom to rule over. Then Imelda makes the near fatal mistake of having a salad and one of the poisoned tomatoes from Ambrose’s kingdom winds up on her plate. She’s dying when a witch offers to take their love in exchange for a spell to save Imelda’s life. Ambrose agrees to the bargain. They no longer love each other but they are allowed to stay at Love’s Keep for a year and a day till the kingdom kicks them out for lacking amore.
Ambrose and Imelda live separate lives in the palace, rarely speaking or crossing paths, with each of them wondering what they had ever seen in each other. Then when their time is up and they are getting ready to leave, the witch reappears and offers them another bargain. And that’s where the tale really begins – but I won’t tell you anything about it because this story is less than 150 pages long and I don’t want to spoil any of it.
Ms. Chokshi does an incredible job of packing a lot into a little. Her short tale covers the realities of marital love, difficult family relationships and how our childhood informs our adulthood. If you are a fan of Disney’s Tangled or the classic film The Princess Bride, (guilty on both counts) I think you will absolutely adore it. There’s a comedic horse, the princess rescues the prince over and over, there’s plenty of adventure and the characters are whimsical, endearing, relatable, intelligent, funny, kind and really add depth to what could have been a very cheesy, breezy narrative.
That said, I strongly recommend Once More Upon a Time to any lover of fairytale romance. It’s subtly sexy, delightful and loads of fun.
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Grade: A-
Book Type: Fantasy Romance
Sensuality: Subtle
Review Date: 05/11/21
Publication Date: 10/2021
Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.
I've been an avid reader since 2nd grade and discovered romance when my cousin lent me Lord of La Pampa by Kay Thorpe in 7th grade. I currently read approximately 150 books a year, comprised of a mix of Young Adult, romance, mystery, women's fiction, and science fiction/fantasy.
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On my TBR pile!
This sounds like it has potential
It does. It’s really adorable.
I really liked this novella, thanks for the recommendation. I would probably give a B+ rather than an A, but that might be because I would have liked to have more details about the other stories alluded to, like how exactly did the dancing princesses thing work, what happened to the aunt, what about the youngest brother … and that certainly is a sign that the author spins a story worth reading.
So yeah, not the cheapest of books but well worth the price of admission. I will have to check out the other books by the same author.
I agree – I would enjoy hearing more about the dancing, the aunt and I would love a story featuring the youngest brother. Do check out the author’s back list – she’s written some great novels.
This sounds really fun. Too bad it’s over $7 on Kindle for 150 page novella. Definitely not in my budget! I’ll mark it for my TBR list and hope the price drops.
I was surprised at the price given the page count. It’s an absolutely amazing novella and frankly better than a lot of books I’ve paid that price for but I can understand your hesitance.
I looked at my library and they have it. I won’t use a Hoopla borrow for it, but I can put a hold for an Overdrive copy!
Libraries are wonderful! Glad you’ll get a chance to read it.