Of Swords and Parasols

Despite being a direct sequel to The Princess and the Bear, this is a pretty standalone book, and can be read without having read its predecessors, though some parts wouldn’t have the same emotional impact without the background.

Liva is the daughter of the bear and the hound, and has the ability to turn into any animal she wants. Jens is a boy with no magic in a country where everyone either has the accepted ability to communicate with animals, or the illegal ability to turn into an animal. Harrison resolves the hatred of animal magic from the first two books without bogging down the plot too much with remnants, and tells a pretty strong story of Liva and Jens finding their places in the world at the same time. I didn’t like this as much as The Princess and the Bear, but more than The Princess and the Hound.

This is essentially an interesting idea told in the most boring way possible, if well written. Advertising itself as a reverse Beauty and the Beast, the first hundred pages focus on George, a likable but very typical angsty young prince in a typical medieval-lite kingdom. George has angst because his mother died when he was seven and because he can talk to animals, a talent that gets you burned at the stake. About 70 pages in, the titular princess, Beatrice, is mentioned, and a little over 100 pages in, she and the other titular character, her hound, Marit, appear. Beatrice and Marit appear to have a unique form of communication between them, and while Beatrice is wild, Marit’s mannerisms are almost human-like at times, and both are shunned by their respective races.

Unfortunately, the book remains almost exclusively focused on George. I liked George. He was a nice boy. But his character and storyline are so “been there, done that” that I have a closetful of t-shirts to show my experience with them. Regardless of the genders involved, the situation between Marit and Beatrice is much more interesting. Unfortunately, it’s just there to further George’s story.

An Amazon review says that having a girl on the cover alienates have of the book’s potential audience. Namely, boys. Now, my instinctive response to this is “no one says a boy on the cover alienates girls,” but I have to concede that he has a point, though from the reverse. It misleads the audience the book, as portrayed, would appeal to. Between the title and the cover, the neutral back cover blurb’s most natural interpretation, to me, is that the book would actually somewhat focus on a heroine, not have her as a secondary character in a stereotypical fantasy prince’s coming of age story. It would be much better served titling itself The Prince and the Hound and plastering a boy on the cover.

I have a feeling, though, that this is one of those cases where people who don’t read as much fantasy as I do will both the plot and the lead more interesting than I do.