Review: Entwined by Heather Dixon

“Azalea is trapped. Just when she should feel that everything is before her . . . beautiful gowns, dashing suitors, balls filled with dancing . . . it’s taken away. All of it.

The Keeper understands. He’s trapped, too, held for centuries within the walls of the palace. And so he extends an invitation.

Every night, Azalea and her eleven sisters may step through the enchanted passage in their room to dance in his silver forest.

But there is a cost.

The Keeper likes to keep things.

Azalea may not realize how tangled she is in his web until it is too late.”

– Description from GoodReads

Is that not the most beautiful cover? Swoon.

And it is *perfect* for a fairytale re-telling. I love her dress. And the castle in the distance. Heck, I love it all.

I am a *huge* fan of fairytale re-tellings, so I was super-excited to get a copy of Entwined by Heather Dixon. I had never read the story of the Twelve Dancing Princesses, so that made this even better.

From the first page, Dixon’s writing was spell-binding. I can hardly believe this is her first novel. Each princess has her own personality, and I loved how their names corresponded with their character. I could really relate to Azalea. She is the one who tries to keep everything together and make everyone else happy.

In the tradition of true fairytales, the King is overbearing and mean. But he comes to show his love and affection for his daughters.

I just loved the imagery of the kingdom and the castle with bits of magic left. And how Azalea’s mom still held a few of the bits magic in her own possessions. As the king drew further and further away into war and work, the queen held on to the magic of the castle.

And the magical realm where the girls go to dance and end up meeting Keeper was so perfect — intoxicating and creepy and beautiful. It’s easy to see why the girls found refuge there.

And Mr. Bradford! Oh, how I loved him.

All in all, this was a great fairytale and I would definitely recommend this story to fans of Robin McKinley and other fairytale masters.

Entwined by Heather Dixon is available from Amazon.

**Disclaimer** An Advanced Reader’s Copy of this book was provided to me by the publisher, Greenwillow, an imprint of HarperCollins. It did not affect my review in any way.