Third in the Frog Princess series. Emma is in love with Prince Eadric, but feels that she can’t marry him because of a family curse. Girls or women in her family who touch a flower after turning sixteen, become ugly and nasty in temperament. It’s a curse laid on them because an ancestor offended a fairy, reputedly at a long-ago party. Emma of course wants to break the curse, but to do that she has to know exactly what it said (in this fantasy universe, all curses have instructions on how to break them in the curse, or it won’t function properly. It’s one of the magic rules. I like that there are rules for how the magic works). She can’t find the information in old books, so she decides to travel back in time and observe the curse happening. Of course then she gets way too involved with events. She’s been warned not to do anything that would change the past (and affect the future), but can’t helping thinking that if she prevents the curse from ever happening, things would be so much better. She had wanted to go alone on this venture, but Eadric insists on coming along, and so does Li’l the bat. When she first arrives in the past, she’s of course surprised to see how things are different- from what people wear, to the shape of the building (it was smaller back then), to customs and attitudes. An even bigger surprise is how different her ancestors are, from what she’d expected. Quite a few people she thought would be nice, or at least honorable, are exactly the opposite. Downright unpleasant, petty and mean. She makes some new friends though, and while trying to hide her identity and blend in, also attempts to thwart the curse and protect certain people from harm. Lots of unexpected things happen, which adds to the lively humor in the story. She and Eadric have to face harpies and a dragon among other challenges, and the Prince participates in a jousting tournament. The dragon scene was one of the better parts of the book. Li’l the bat falls in love, and we get introduced to the vampire who appears later in the series.
It was fun, but also left me somewhat disappointed. Aside from the slightly awkward writing style that doesn’t quite sit well with me (things I want described often aren’t, transitions between scenes can be abrupt or not make sense), I felt like the time travel part of the story (which was most of it) was really lacking in some areas. The main character fit in far too easily in my opinion- she went back not just decades, but centuries. People noticed her clothing was strange at first, but other than that she had no problems. I think there would have been a lot more awkwardness and miscommunication with language and gestures and other cultural things having changed so much. Earlier in the book (and at the end) there were some scenes with Haywood, who used to be an otter- and he remarked how difficult it was to adjust to being human, after having lived as an animal for so many years. But there was no indication of that. I would have found it far more interesting to see a man who acted like an otter, or behaved oddly in other ways because of that, but he just said it was hard, nothing shown. Or it was so minimal in the narrative that I missed it. I know the age group for this book probably won’t notice such details being left out, but it felt like a missed opportunity to me.
Borrowed from the public library.
Artist: Aimee Stewart
