Review: Sexy SPIN on a Classic Fairy Tale
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 11, 2013
Juliana Ravel is seeking desperate measures to save her brother from the Prince's executioner. She seeks to make an appeal, and as a last ditch effort to woo the Prince to her plea, she claims to be able to spin straw into gold. The prince, in all his shady, smarmy charm, accepts and Juliana could just SMACK herself for even THINKING of making such an offer. At her wit's end, she grasps her inherited pendant to in her hand and cries desperate tears. When a man of gold appears she's stunned. When the aforementioned man attempts to strangle her, she gets angry.When Rue, a gold fae,  is summoned from his imprisonment and finds himself standing before a woman whom he assumes is the same witch who imprisoned him AND his sister, he goes for blood. But when the woman pleads for him to stop, he hesitates. The sorceress who had imprisoned him would not have plead for anything. He soon realizes the woman is not his jailer but rather her great-granddaughter. Juliana explains her situation, and though Rue doesn't really want to help, he cant' help but be a bit...intrigued by her.They strike up something of a friendship. When Juliana begins to dream of her gold fairy, the friendship begins to stretch its bounds into lover territory. When the prince arrives the next day to find Juliana has miraculously managed to keep her side of the bargain, he insists that she marry him. Juliana has no desire to marry the pyscho, but he more or less threatens to kill her brother if she refuses. The story moves forward to Juliana being forced to spin more gold while attempting to find a way to 1) free Rue from his entrapment spell 2) wiggle her way from beneath the prince's grasp and  3) free her brother. She ends up undertaking a revolt against the prince's regime, picking up where her brother had left off. In the process, she and Rue end up becoming closer than either anticipated, and they each have to weight their actions and those actions' repercussions.Vivi Andrews is new to me so I was excited to both read a new author AND read a fairy tale reboot. I love me some fairy tale re-tellings, and Spinning Gold does not disappoint. As far as length goes it's more toward a novella, so we don't get a lot of detail on how, exactly, Juliana begins to stir up a revolt and what, exactly, goes on between her and the prince outside of their monthly exchange when he expects her to spin gold. We do, however, get a nice glimpse into the blooming attraction and relationship between her and Rue. It's sweet and gradually becomes pretty sexy.I enjoyed this book. It's well written & edited, and offers a fun, unpredictable twist on a classic tale. If you're looking for a short and enjoyable read, give Spinning Gold a shot.