Looking For a Good Book

It is 1621 and the widowed Duke of Bavaria is getting married again. It is an extra special event as the duke is also introducing his daughter, Sophie, to Bavaria high society. Sophie isn’t particularly excited about the event, but her tone changes when she meets Philip – a prince, heir to the throne in Spain. Philip doesn’t like these events much more than Sophie but his position requires he attends.

Sophie and Philip have a mutual, immediate attraction to one another and fall in love.  But Philip is ordered to return to Spain by his father and king, where there is an arranged fiancé waiting for the prince. Heartbroken, Sophie turns to Claudia – her father’s new wife. But as she gets closer to her stepmother, Sophie begins to wonder if the rumors of Claudia working magic are true.

Philip returns and claims that he’s convinced his father that a marriage to Sophie is also good for Spain and that he was going to marry his love whether his father approved or not. This should be the end of the conflict and the beginning of a fairy tale life, but someone is out to kill Sophie and she must become a tough defender of all she loves.

It’s been almost a decade since I last read a book by Melissa de la Cruz and I thought I was time to try again  and this retelling of the Snow White story was appealing to me.

The opening, with the establishing our main characters of Sophie and Philip was really nicely done. I got pulled in right away and I was looking forward to how their relationship was going to grow.  It had strong YA vibes as Sophie seemed to be a pretty standard strong, young, female of privilege who has to grow beyond the expectations of the day. There’s also a nice little mystery established here as well.

But then we get more into the Claudia story and the book slowed down. The deeper we got into something dark and mysterious the less interesting it became.  And let’s face it – that’s not the way a book should work.

Looking for a good book? Snow & Poison by Melissa de la Cruz has a great beginning, great set-up of characters and nice fleshing out these familiar, fairy tale figures, but there’s a story that doesn’t live up to the legend or the potential of the characters.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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Snow & Poison

author: Melissa de le Cruz

publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers

ISBN: 9780593326688

hardcover, 336 pages