| $@%&! level: Low “Bedroom” level: Low Violence level: Low Back Cover: “Talia fell under a spell.... Jack broke the curse. I was told to beware the accursed spindle, but it was so enchanting, so hypnotic... I was looking for a little adventure the day I ditched my tour group. But finding a comatose town, with a hot-looking chick asleep in it, was so not what I had in mind. I awakened in the same place but in another time—to a stranger's soft kiss. I couldn't help kissing her. Sometimes you just have to kiss someone. I didn't know this would happen. Now I am in dire trouble because my father, the king, says I have brought ruin upon our country. I have no choice but to run away with this commoner! Now I'm stuck with a bratty princess and a trunk full of jewels.... The good news: My parents will freak! Think you have dating issues? Try locking lips with a snoozing stunner who turns out to be 316 years old. Can a kiss transcend all—even time?” |
So how do they all end up being so likable? Well, mostly it's because Talia makes a decision to fall in love with Jack and make him fall in love with her, if at all possible—and she's a princess, so she's had training in diplomacy. She knows how to help people feel better about themselves (the way she builds up Jack's little sister is actually really sweet), and when they feel better about themselves, they start treating each other better as well. I suspect that the reason Jack's family was so miserable to start out with was that they were looking for happiness in success, and feeling like failures because they couldn't find it there. And Talia, in helping them, discovers that she's good at it, and likes herself so much better when she isn't being the spoiled princess. It's one of the things I look for in a love story, that the couple help each other to be better people. I know I feel more like loving someone if I like myself when I'm around them.
For me, that's the real story—the character journey from a bunch of brats to a group of confident and likable people. However, there have to be some exciting things that happen along the way, or it wouldn't be a proper story, would it? In this case, injecting a princess from 300 years ago into modern society (in Florida, no less) causes nearly enough excitement all on its own. Add in the fact that the witch who placed the original curse starts arguing about whether or not it was properly broken (seriously, it's like the post-election spats from a few years ago; she practically demands a recount), and threatening to drag Talia back to do it all over again, and you get that extra bit of high adventure. It's just lucky for Jack that this all takes place present-day, because otherwise he'd have to go on several months worth of quest just to get back to Europe to save his true love. Hooray for airplanes. I did really like the “dragon” that Jack has to fight in order to reach Talia in the end, though. And I liked the way they did the witch Malvolia.
I will say though, that telling the princess over and over to not ever touch a spindle, and never bothering to show her a picture or even tell her what a spindle looks like, may not be the best plan ever for avoiding a curse.