Happy Wednesday Everyone!
With Christmas being right around the corner I wanted to review a book that put me in the Christmas spirit.
Winterspell by Claire Legrand is a retelling of the Nutcracker, and what a story it is. I honestly knew very little about the Nutcracker before I read this book, and I haven't even seen the ballet of it, although I have always wanted to. Even with going in not knowing a lot about the story, this story paints a clear and descriptive picture of what the Nutcracker is about.
The description was taken from the
Goodreads website:
"The clock chimes midnight, a curse breaks, and a girl meets a prince…but what follows is not all sweetness and sugarplums.
New York City, 1899. Clara Stole, the mayor’s ever-proper daughter, leads a double life. Since her mother’s murder, she has secretly trained in self-defense with the mysterious Drosselmeyer.
Then, on Christmas Eve, disaster strikes.
Her home is destroyed, her father abducted—by beings distinctly not human. To find him, Clara journeys to the war-ravaged land of Cane. Her only companion is the dethroned prince Nicholas, bound by a wicked curse. If they’re to survive, Clara has no choice but to trust him, but his haunted eyes burn with secrets—and a need she can’t define. With the dangerous, seductive faery queen Anise hunting them, Clara soon realizes she won’t leave Cane unscathed—if she leaves at all.
Inspired by The Nutcracker, Winterspell is a dark, timeless fairy tale about love and war, longing and loneliness, and a girl who must learn to live without fear."
Clara's world is thrown through a loop on Christmas Eve when her home is destroyed and her father is taken. Clara doesn't know what to do, until she learns about the world of Cane. Clara must journey into the unknown if she wants to save her father and the life she has always known. Clara must put aside her fears and find the strength within herself to save the world of Cane and save Nicholas, who she must trust with her life. If she can get Nicholas back on a throne that is rightfully his, than she can return with her father to her own world. Will Clara be able to save her father or will her fears overcome her that she succumbs to them and is trapped in the world of Cane forever?
Claire is such an amazing storyteller, that she brings the reader into a dark retelling of the Nutcracker, and spins the most beautiful story of a heroine who must find her true self. She gives life to all of her characters, and with her storytelling, the reader doesn't have to know anything about the Nutcracker prior to reading the story. This is one story that everyone who loves adventure, mystery, and characters going on a journey to find out who they really are, cannot miss!
Enjoy this dark Nutcracker retelling adventure my friends!
The image was taken from the
Goodreads website.
