Review: Fun, but a bit weak
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 09 9, 2013
The five hundred kingdoms series can be a lot of fun.  Mercedes Lackey clearly is having a blast taking apart old faerie tales and the clichés that run through them.  This one is a great play on the Presephone myth with the wrong goddess being snatched by the lord of the underworld.  Of course, that means that multiple stories wind up mixed together, requiring that Prince Leopold undertake several quests to right everything.Unfortunately, while the idea is good, the plot here ends up a bit stretched.  Mercedes had to dig a bit deep to find new fantasy clichés to play with and that made the story a bit stilted and uneven.It's still a fairly good story, written by a master wordsmith.  If you've enjoyed other books in the series, this is worth getting.  I recommend starting from the start of the series however, otherwise some of the rules of this universe won't make much sense.