Thursday, June 20, 2013

Red (Fairy Tale Reboot) / S.W. Vaughn


Reviewed by: ?wazithinkin

Genre: Fairy Tale/ Fantasy

Approximate word count: 15-20,000 words

Availability    
Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: No  Smashwords: NO  Paper: NO
Click on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords store

Author:

S.W. Vaughn lives in central New York with her husband, son, and a lot of cats who are often named after movie or TV show characters -- like Fizzgig (The Dark Crystal), Coda (Brother Bear), Mothra (Godzilla), and Blooregard Q. Kazoo (Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends). She is working on the fifth and final book of the House Phoenix series that started with Broken Angel. To find out more about her check out her website, her guest post at Books and Pals, or her indieview at The IndieView.

Description:

“A not-so-powerful witch battles her past and a dark presence lurking in the forest to save her grandma in this modern paranormal retelling of Little Red Riding Hood.”

Appraisal:

I have not read any of S.W. Vaughn’s books before and wanted to get a small taste of her writing style. I thoroughly enjoyed this novella. Aurora Bishop, whose friends call her Red, is a fire-cracker with her snarky comebacks that made this a fun read. She is also a reluctant witch whose mother is the leader of the entire New York coven. As far as Aurora was concerned spells were great but pepper spray was faster.

Ms. Vaughn has taken the original story of Nana being ill and Red taking a basket of goodies, which included a bottle of restoration elixir, to her cottage in the woods and ranked it up a bit with witches, magic, and druids. The darkness that is enveloping the woods was well described and the wolf frightening. Red’s memories of where she grew-up brought a nice sense of place to the whole area. This was a delightful read that I was able to finish in one evening. I would love to see Ms. Vaughn write more rebooted fairy tales.

FYI:

Damn and damned were the strongest words used in this story, depending on your own opinion, I think this story could be shared with older children.

Format/Typo Issues:

I found no editing or formatting errors at all. Very impressive.


Rating: ***** Five stars

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