In an effort to get me more active on this blog, combined with my love of talking about books, I've decided to do a 30-day book challenge for the month of June. There are a ton of book challenges out there, and I lowkey want to do all of them, but I had to just pick one so here it is. For the thirty days of June I am going to (try) and post a book every day to fit the challenges parameters. This will be fun because I get to talk about one of my favorite subjects: books, and hopefully some of you might be inspired to read some of them! So here we go.
This one is a hard one. I read a lot of good ones last year. If you're actually interested in hearing the full answer to the best bookS I read last year, here's a post I made about it. Since I already made a full post on my favorite reads of last yea, I won't dive too in depth here. I'll just pick one.
Stain by A.G. Howard
This one actually surprised me last year-- many of the books were ones I was expecting to be on the list, but I didn't even know this one existed until I happened to stumble across it in Barnes and Noble. And wow, I am so glad that I happened to pick it up. This is an author that I had never even read a book from before, but it absolutely blew me away. You know how loose fairytale retellings are all the rage right now? Well, Stain falls right in that category, but it's not any of the commonly used tales-- cinderella, beauty and the beast, the little mermaid. Nope, Stain uses the Princess and the Pea for its inspiration, a much more badass and tough Princess and the Pea, but it still manages the capture the magic and enchanting aspect of a fairytale.
Stain is set in a fantasy world where one kingdom in the past was split into two. Now the two kingdoms are day and night, and they have been at war for as long as anyone can remember. But now may be the time for the two to come back together, after all, the beginnings of the prophecy have started to be fulfilled. A night princess was born to the day royalty and a day prince was born to the night royalty. All they have to do is come together to fulfill the prophecy and rejoin the two kingdoms... Except it can never be that easy, can it? When you throw in an evil stepmother and stepsisters, along with a lot of magic as well as nefarious creatures? Definitely not an easy task.
The writing and tone are magical, really truly feeling like you are reading a fairytale, and not just some modern rendition. I can't emphasize enough how much I loved this book. Please, please read it!
Here's the real synopsis:
"Once upon a nightmare, her fairy tale begins...
This high-fantasy gothic fairytale, inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s The Princess and the Pea, is set in an alternative medieval world split apart by magic. To win back her kingdom of perpetual day, save her night prince, and reunite the sun with the moon, a princess incapable of speech or sound must prove herself everything a traditional princess is not: tough enough to sleep on a bed of nails, and loud enough to be heard without a voice."
Stain is set in a fantasy world where one kingdom in the past was split into two. Now the two kingdoms are day and night, and they have been at war for as long as anyone can remember. But now may be the time for the two to come back together, after all, the beginnings of the prophecy have started to be fulfilled. A night princess was born to the day royalty and a day prince was born to the night royalty. All they have to do is come together to fulfill the prophecy and rejoin the two kingdoms... Except it can never be that easy, can it? When you throw in an evil stepmother and stepsisters, along with a lot of magic as well as nefarious creatures? Definitely not an easy task.
The writing and tone are magical, really truly feeling like you are reading a fairytale, and not just some modern rendition. I can't emphasize enough how much I loved this book. Please, please read it!
Here's the real synopsis:
"Once upon a nightmare, her fairy tale begins...
This high-fantasy gothic fairytale, inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s The Princess and the Pea, is set in an alternative medieval world split apart by magic. To win back her kingdom of perpetual day, save her night prince, and reunite the sun with the moon, a princess incapable of speech or sound must prove herself everything a traditional princess is not: tough enough to sleep on a bed of nails, and loud enough to be heard without a voice."
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