Fairest Review #IndiGo

Title:  Fairest

Author: K.S. Trenten

Publisher:  NineStar Press

Release Date: 12/12/2023

Heat Level: 2 - Fade to Black Sex

Pairing: Female/Female

Length: 30800

Genre: Fantasy, Fairy tale, romance, witches, royalty, magic, enemies to lovers, revenge to romance

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Description

All my life, I’ve been haunted by her dark eyes. At birth, she cursed me to prick my finger on the spindle and sleep for a century. She appears in my dreams, my reflections, shaping my desires. Who is she? Follow me into the lonely Forest of Tears where the dwarfs dwell, walking where she once walked. Gaze into the depths of the magic mirror which reveals her secrets. For I refuse to fear her, even if I should.

Excerpt

Fairest

K.S. Trenten © 2023

All Rights Reserved

Chapter One

Dark Eyes

My first memory was of her dark eyes. They captured all the colors of my infant universe, threatening to swallow me. Those eyes should have been terrifying, but they weren’t.

Her bloodred lips moved, shaping words I could not recall.

My parents remembered them only too well, along with everyone else who’d gathered in the castle for my christening.

“I too have a gift for this child. She will grow up with all the beauty and promise of the dawn, but her sun will never rise.”

My mother told me she nearly swooned with terror at the look of sheer malevolence the witch gave the sunbeams playing around my cradle. She wanted to stop the witch from speaking, as did my father.

No one could speak, no matter how much they wished to. Everyone froze in place, spellbound by the witch’s gaze.

“Before the sun sets on her sixteenth birthday, the princess shall prick her finger on a spindle. With the first drop of her blood, a sleeping curse will fall upon her, claiming her for a hundred years.”

The witch disappeared into a cloud of emerald smoke.

No one could find her after my christening, despite many attempts. The only thing she left behind was the memory of her dark eyes.

I wondered if she’d been real. Her appearance was the sort of thing I’d read about in old legends. The way she haunted my dreams, I felt like I was being drawn into one of them.

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Meet the Author

I’m a California Bay Area author, exploring the borders of reality and gender to create new worlds and populate them with compelling characters. I live with my husband and our two four footed children, i.e. cats.

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Ornery Owl's Review

Four out of five stars

I was captivated by this book from the first page. The scene descriptions are nothing short of spellbinding. The narrative is dreamlike and filled with longing for a nebulous connection which perhaps doesn't even exist in the waking world. The stories are erotic without being explicit, as exemplified in the following paragraph.

I’m not certain how long I sat there, staring at her. The lady’s painted eyes seemed equally fascinated with me. No—more than fascinated. Those eyes wanted to devour me.

I could picture every step Princess Rose and Oriana took on the path into the Forest of Tears and could visualize the dwarf Opal as if he were standing right in front of me. The more I learned about Oriana and her secrets, the more I wanted to know.

The only reason I rate this story four rather than five stars is there are places where the narrative bogs down and repeats itself, saying the same thing in slightly different ways several times. Also, the moral of the story (it's okay to be gay) becomes a bit heavy-handed at times. I fully agree with this assertion, but a lighter touch would be more in keeping with the dreamlike nature of this tale. Other than this, I have no complaints about this innovative and engaging fairytale retelling.