Review - Wide Awake Princess

Book Review

The Wide Awake Princess
By E. D. Baker 

Find this book at: Amazon | Indigo | You're local bookstore

I picked this book up on a whim based entirely on it's cover. Although part of me really wanted to hate the style of illustration, I was drawn to it and knew instantly it was a book that I'd enjoy. The back blurb helped confirm that feeling when I read that it's a new take on an old fairy tale and there was going to be just a little romance and a whole lot of humour in there amongst all the action.

The story is one that most everyone knows, a princess is cursed at birth to prick her finger and sleep for a hundred years until she's woken by true love's first kiss. What you might not know is that the princess has a little sister, Annie, who happens to be completely  immune to all forms of magic, good and bad. When the spell is cast and the entire castle is put to sleep, it's up to Annie to find the right prince to break the spell.

Non stop action fills each page as we're thrown from one fairy tale to another with ease, including elements from tales such as The Frog Prince, Hansel and Gretel, The Princess and the Pea and many others.

There was so many things happening to Annie and her companion for her journey, Liam, that I occasionally wished for more time to breath within each stop in Annie's journey. As it was, we barely get a chance to imagine each setting of the story before we're pushed forward to the next location and fairy tale.

The characters were mostly well developed despite the sometimes overwhelmingly large cast, but they were all outshone by the main character who's clever wit was very appealing.

This was a very amusing and entertaining read that contained everything that it promised; action, humour, romance and a strong heroine.

4/5 stars

Nothing to fear here

Everyone has fears. For writing it’s one of the easiest ways to develop your character. Give them a fear or two, and *poof* they’re more rounded characters.

Ever since I started writing novels, I dutifully gave each character a random fear and maybe even have them deal with it at some point in the story. However, I never really understood the fact that it’s not just the fear itself that matters, but also how the character deals with that emotion.

I’m terrified of spiders and heights (I know, I’m so original) however; my reaction to encountering each fear is completely different. If I come across a spider, or accidently touch one, I can usually control that fear and calmly walk away. For heights, when the fear hits me, I panic and usually can’t do anything but fall down to my knees—lying down’s even better—and whimper.

Someone else might be equally afraid of the same thing and deal with their fears completely differently. That reaction, not the fear itself is what makes characters interesting.

Do you spend time giving your characters specific fears? How would they react when they’re forced to face those fears? How do you react when facing your own fears?

Edit vs Rewrite

A quick note to let you know that the price of my ebook, Magic High has dropped to $0.99 on Amazon and Smashwords. Other distributors should catch up with the price change soon.

When I finished my first draft of my latest novel, I sat back and thought, ‘Great! Done. Nothing left but edits.’

*Cue laughter*

I edited a few chapters, made minor changes in sentence structure, fixed plot holes, checked for consistency, and all that fun stuff that needs to be done before the book can be called complete. And then a couple of people in my critique group mentioned that my main character was very similar to Tabetha from Magic High.

Oops.

Then I realized, it’s impossible to change the personality of the main character in any way without completely changing the entire story. After all, the novel is written in first point perspective. I may as well have decided to write the story from a completely different characters point of view.

After a lot of groaning and whining and arguments with myself, I finally accepted the fact that the book will be better after a full rewrite. And after all, the whole point of editing is to make the story as awesome as possible, right?

There is always the fear that rewrites will never end. All I have to do is look at my comic, Never to see rewrites gone wrong. However, I'm confident that this draft is much stronger than my first, and I’m hopeful that once it’s complete, I’ll be able to move on to final edits and then copy edits.

*Fingers crossed*

Rewriting complete drafts is a part of my writing process, but I know that not every author believes it’s necessary. How much editing do you do? Have you ever rewritten so many times that you lost interest in the story altogether?