Princess Emma travels with her promised-to-be-betrothed Prince Eadric to his family’s kingdom. They want his parents’ blessing before becoming officially engaged. The visit is a trial to Emma, who must avoid using her magic because Eadric’s family- and everyone who lives in that area- have deep distrust and fear of witches. She faces prejudice and nasty looks at every turn. But a new venture opens up immediately, when they find out that Eadric’s brother has been kidnapped by trolls. Emma and Eadric set off to rescue him. It’s dangerous and risky, of course, but they have each other, plus the help of Emma’s animal friends, a nice bat and an annoying crab. All this time Emma, of course, has been using magic secretly even though she had promised not to- similar to how she kept trying to influence events in the past in the last book, when she wasn’t supposed to. Partway through the journey she suddenly has a very concrete reason not to use any magic at all, as it puts their lives in danger. Her prince isn’t at all fazed by this, though she is often flustered at having to figure out how to solve problems and do things that would have been easily avoided or got around with magic. That alone gave her character some growth. When they finally reach the troll’s underground tunnels there are quite a few surprises. Not the least, that the younger prince is obnoxious, rude, and completely lacking in tact. He enjoys saying things that make people feel uncomfortable. Acts sweet and well-behaved around his mother who completely dotes on him. Nobody else can stand him. (Not even the trolls at this point!) So when they finally get home, Emma puts a spell on the young prince so that he can’t go more than five feet away from his mother. Pretty soon they are both tired of each other! That made me laugh.
I got tired of this series near the end of the book, though. Not just the uneven pacing and continual lack of descriptions but well, it was just a little boring. I’m ready to read something else, maybe I will come back and finish up the last three later. I did like the trolls, they were interesting because so different and awkwardly stupid (but very strong and resilient, so the dumb things they did were dangerous). There was a scene with cockatrices in it, a mythical creature I haven’t seen featured in fantasy books very often, and it made me think of The Dun Cow which I ought to read again. But all the wedding stuff at the end of the story felt very rushed (as it obviously did to the characters too), and Eadric’s parents’ acceptance of Emma seemed a bit sudden, even though she did save their younger son and then their whole castle from a troll invasion- and that’s when I started getting tired of reading it.
Borrowed from the public library.
Previous book in the series.
