Princess and the Bear

I fell in love with the first book - The Princess and the Hound and was very surprised by this sequel/companion novel. This book really is more of a companion novel in the sense that it focuses on two characters from the first book, but not the main characters. We have the bear that used to be a human king and a hound that was a princess for a long time and is now in her original form as a hound.

These books involve animal magic, but this one focuses straight in on it. With the fairy tale ending of the first book, I really didn't expect any more stories from this realm. The basic plot is that the hound and bear are living in the forest, animal magic is still unaccepted, so they rarely see their old companions. They find a cat man in the forest who is literally sucking the life out of everything around him and enjoying it. Unmagic is what they call it. They end up on a journey to see the wild man that turned the prince into the bear for he is their only hope on saving the magical creatures of the forest as well as the rest of the land.

I found myself really enjoying this book. It was a great difference from the usual sequel in that it has further plot, not everything was happily ever after - after all - and it veers into that course, blossoming a different kind of a romance and characters that are abnormal and interesting. I stayed up late last night to finish it, because I was enjoying it so much. I recommend both of these books to lovers of fairy tales.

5/5 Roses