Title: Cloaked
Series: Once Upon a Western (Book #1)
Year: 2017
Author: Rachel Kovaciny
Summary: Little Red Riding Hood... re-imagined.
Mary Rose feels uneasy around Mr. Linden from the moment she meets him on the stagecoach ride to her grandmother's ranch in Wyoming Territory. But he works for her grandmother, so that means he's trustworthy, doesn't it? Everyone else seems to view him as honest and respectable, and Mary Rose wonders if she's overreacting.
She tries to ignore her suspicions until one night, she discovers his real reason for being at the ranch. Now, if she's going to save her grandmother—and herself—she's going to need to run faster than she's ever run before.
Review: This review was originally written for publication on Fairy Tale Central. Click here to read the full review.
After reading and really enjoying Rachel's 12 Dancing Princesses retelling, Dancing and Doughnuts, I knew I wanted to read the rest of her fairytale retellings. Cloaked is the only other in her Once Upon a Western series, other than a couple of short stories. I love that she's focusing on fairytales that aren't your everyday retellings. I mean, one of her short stories is a retelling of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. When was the last time you read a retelling of that? And Rachel's doing it all completely without magic -- another thing that majorly excites me.
I've found that Little Red Riding Hood isn't the most popular fairytale to retell nowadays, but interest in it is definitely growing. However, many of the authors retelling it have gone the magic route, creating werewolves and curses and otherworldly creepiness. Rachel's Cloaked is a breath of fresh air in the midst of all those retellings.
Mary Rose (and yes, it's Mary Rose, not just Mary) is off to visit her grandmother. She's excited about the opportunity to get out of the big city and meet a real, live Indian (and maybe a real Western criminal), but she's also nervous since there are many years of tension between her grandmother and her parents. She's determined, however, to enjoy her visit and learn to ride -- no matter how uncomfortable a certain employee of her grandmother's makes her feel.
Advisory: Some mild peril and action. A few characters receive injuries (such as one getting bashed in the face with a lamp), but everything is clean and not too graphic. The climax does involve the woodcutter's axe from the original fairytale, but everything again is not terribly graphic.
Light romance. One character makes some romantic advances on Mary Rose while she's at the ranch, but nothing goes very far (other than one forced kiss). She's disgusted with the attempts, but often wonders if she's reading too much into some of the things he says and does. I realize that this type of romantic advances can suggest something dirty, but I thought the author handled it very well and was able to keep things pretty clean.
Again, click here to read the full review on Fairy Tale Central. And be sure to check out the rest of this month's fun posts on the fairytale, Little Red Riding Hood!
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
It sounds so good!
ReplyDeleteI had a lot of fun reading this one! If you're looking for a cute fairytale retelling without magic, I'd definitely recommend this series!
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