| $@%&! level: Low (if any) “Bedroom” level: Low (none really, except they just can't stop kissing) Violence level: Medium-Low Back Cover: “The sleeping girl has no idea she is asleep. After Aleyna witnessed the cruel deaths of her family, she was put to sleep by Ezralon the unicorn. He has been keeping her safe, hidden in the forest, until her true prince could come and rescue her. While Aleyna is protected in the forest, her spirit walks the halls of her ruined, deserted castle in a dream-like existence, believing everything is still perfect. However, she is halted in this state—almost as if time were frozen—until the prince awakens her. Prince Darien of Lybrooke Court loves a challenge as much as the next man, but believes it will be a fool's errand to rescue a ghost who is already dead! He's convinced that no one could have survived sleeping thirty years, so what is the point of rescuing a girl who is quite content to haunt on her own? Of course, if Darien wasn't so afraid of ghouls, this whole thing could be much easier to fathom...” |
The problem isn't the story, you see. The problem, and it is a huge old problem, is in the way it's told. The language is unbelievable. At first, I thought it was just because it was Aleyna's perfect dreamworld, but it kept on going when Darien was introduced. For one thing, it reads like something written with a thesaurus kept open. Why have the characters “say” anything, when they could be hooting, inquiring, cajoling, demanding, remonstrating, vouchsafing, or a dozen other things? And if you find yourself using the word “eyes” too much, you could always substitute “orbs.” My favorite, though, is when it's obvious the dialogue has been changed from something more modern-day to fit with the rest of the poetic/archaic style. Apparently, when a prince wants to talk trash, he doesn't say, “Come on! Is that all you've got?” He has to instead exclaim, “Is that the greatest you have within you?”
Yeah.