A princess flees from a curse, and runs straight into another one, the key to this is one is true love, but can she ever open her heart to anyone again after her traumatic past.
A Captive of Wing and Feather by Melanie Cellier is a Retelling of Swan Lake, it is the fifth book in the Beyond the Four Kingdoms series, and it is the sequel series of The Four Kingdoms series, I recommend reading everything in order as always but for this book particularly, I highly recommend reading A Tale of Beauty and Beast at least (explanation below). Melanie Cellier has built a wonderful world and despite, the books being readable as standalone, it is way more fun to read them in order.
“Princess Adelaide has been missing for years. And that’s exactly the way she wants it. Haunted by her past, not even the curse that entraps her is enough to make her long for her old home.
But her past finds her anyway, in the form of a handsome prince from her childhood. Adelaide doesn’t want to let Gabe in, but a sinister force is spreading fear throughout her new kingdom, and only Gabe has the will to help her. Adelaide can’t refuse his assistance–not when the evil might soon ensnare much more than a solitary princess. But with her friends and her new kingdom in danger, even the help of Gabe and her seven swans might not be enough.
In this reimagining of the classic tale, Swan Lake, the trapped princess must find the courage to overcome her past if she has any hope of turning a tragedy into a happy ending.”
The plot was good, one of Melanie’s best climaxes in the Four Kingdoms Series and The Beyond the Four Kingdoms series, it was quite engaging, It is a mixed retelling of Swan Lake and the Wild Swans or perhaps The Six Swans, both stories are quite similar, even though I had read/seen these tales in childhood, but I didn’t quite remember them, so as always Wikipedia had my back. As a retelling, it is not exactly mind-blowing, but not bad either. As always, Melanie makes the fairytales her own and weaves a wonderful plot, I have no qualms about that, but the characters are a different story. The pace was fast, or we can say moderately fast.
The end had me at the edge of my seat, since Melanie usually retells the original fairytale so there was a good chance of the story ending tragically and I did not want that at all, not that authors give any mind to us readers’ fragile hearts. Now if you want to know if Melanie has a heart or not you’ll have to read the book. 😁
Okay coming to the characters,
Adelaide is Dominic’s little sister from
A Tale of Beauty and Beast, and we get her back story in that book, it is a very traumatic and tragic one, which means loads of trauma and severe trust issues.
Melanie did a good job showing the distrust, and not letting people in, especially men since it was the men who were supposed to protect her, keep her safe, and make her feel loved who betrayed her. Addie is strong and kind, but truth be told I was expecting someone like Snow from
A Dream of Ebony and White because everyone in the earlier books was going on and on about her sweetness and niceness, I felt like she had the normal level of those qualities, perhaps because for a huge part of the book the only person she talked to was Gabe, which doesn’t really count, we will come to the ‘why?’ later.
Okay, I particularly liked the fact that she took in other people’s perspectives and advice too, and saw the flaws in her ways, I was a bit disappointed with love realization, it could have been so much better by focusing on trust. Honestly, it would have been so emotional and impactful to see her unburden her sorrows to someone, to actually share how she feels, her frustration, and her hopes, she needed something like that and should have gotten it, regardless, I would have loved for that someone to be Gabe, for him to be the person Addie actually opened up to,
(spoiler of a previous book ahead) the scene when Dominic shared his memories with Sophie was such a powerful and impactful one. (spoiler ends) I was really hoping for something similar before the love realization.
Other than that I just really wanted to hug her, the poor girl, after the tragedy and curse in Palinar, she has to go through another curse, and then when she finally hears about her family, she gets to know her brother is married, and a foreigner is sitting in her mother’s place and she still continued to function normally and didn’t become bitter. I loved her swans.
Coming to Gabe, after so many responsible, semi-serious, and semi-fun princes, adventurous and daring Gabe was a welcome change, really they both complemented each other well. She was a worrier and the responsible one, she would keep him from getting too carried away and he would fill her life with fun and adventure. But, it is understandable why, she was so harsh with him, he just walked into her delicate world and refused to budge and leave it be, and of course, If you know someone to be reckless and impulsive you would have some trouble in trusting them, and with Addie’s personal trust issues too. Obviously while reading I screamed, not literally, in my mind, “Addie, HAVE TRUST” quite a few times. Other than that I wasn’t really invested in their love story, the plot held most of my interest, so let it be clear, this is a fantasy book with romance as a subplot, this book is not a romantasy.
The villain was a creepy psycho, who deserved what they got.
I don’t want to spoil any of the plot, so I’m not going to go into detail, but loads of love to Junie, Cora, Wren, and Audrey, who I apologize to for my mistrust in her (not really 😜).
The main theme was trust and betrayal, how important it was to maintain trust, and have trust in yourself and others. Another important theme is trusting people enough to let them help and be there for you, sometimes it is better to just ask for help if you need it, rather than keeping things to yourself and suffering. Of course, there is also the theme of the deep scars betrayal leaves. Then comes forgiveness and second chances for one’s own self and others as well.
Melanie posts extras on her website and there is a bonus chapter for this one too, Here. and she has posted a prologue too from Gabe’s point of view.
3.75 stars, it was a good read, though I’ll most probably not reread it. It has an engaging plot and good characters.
Buh Bye!
Yours,
A Fellow Bookworm
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