Review: Duck Soup vs. Swan Lake
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 05 2, 2014
In this fairytale novella, Gisele, a beautiful opera singer from a wealthy family is turned into a mute crone by a jealous witch on her wedding day.  The up and coming warlock, Lucian who is from the wrong side of the coach road, doesn't recognize the silent, ugly old woman in Gisele's wedding dress and has her kicked out and decides he has been jilted since Gisele's family thought he was too poor for her anyway.  Three years later, Gisele manages to get back to Lucian, who after a deadly error, has given up being a practicing warlock and now is a wealthy man with a big mansion and is throwing a big party the night Gisele hobbles in, to announce his engagement. It takes Gisele less time to convince Lucian who she is this time than it does to get him to even consider unrenouncing his warlock powers.The novella is short but filled to the gills with fairytale bits and pieces which means a big rush at the end to tie all the character ends up. The writing seemed stilted at times but I wasn't sure if that was meant to give a formal fairytale telling feel to the story.  However, it was jarring when matched with a wedding night description that left no doubt the marriage was consummated.  Granted, the cover should have clued me into which genre the story was aiming for.  The characters took turns to see who could be more denser at times and things tended to happen at a ramshackle pace.I know the author has done some full-length fairytale/paranormal novels and perhaps without dealing with page constraints, the characters and stories are better developed.  It is an interesting concept for a storyline.I received this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.