Title: The Winter Ball
Author: Laura Greenwood
Series: Grimm Academy #18
Rating Out of 5: 4 (Really good read!)
My Bookshelves: Fairy tales, Fantasy, Retellings, Romance
Pace: Slow
Format: eBook, Novel
Year: 2023

I absolutely adored this take on The Twelve Dancing Princesses. As the first book I’ve read in the Grimm Academy series, I love how it set the tone for me and how this world is going to work. Rather than being a story of being punished for going against their fathers wishes, this is all about surviving a curse. It’s also a cute little romance that had me smiling and feeling calm as I turned that final page.

This story is all about Audrey starting at Grimm Academy, falling in love with a boy, fighting to beat her curse, and working on her relationship with her dad. The combination of all of these things meant that it was almost impossible to put down The Winter Ball and left me smiling throughout the entire read through. I was mostly just really intrigued how Audrey’s curse was going to manifest, and just how she was going to overcome the process of dancing herself (and her sisters) to death.

I’m not going to lie, I thought throughout The Winter Ball that Audrey’s dad would end up having some redeeming reason or communication to explain why he doesn’t immediately make her heir. He doesn’t. Honestly, the man is kind of annoying and truly sucky. A fair bit of the interpersonal build up is for Audrey to meet her father face to face and discuss the curse. Not one moment of that ends up happening, and his disjoint from his daughters becomes clear – kind of like the father in the original fairy tale.

Eugene is an interesting love interest for Audrey. He is loyal and supportive, willing to help her with her curse from the very beginning. They also build their relationship in that really organic university / college / academy way – by having a class together and getting to know one another. Ultimately, this story is just the very first blossoms of a romance, and I look forward to them being a more established couple and cameo in later stories within the series.

<- Princess of Peas

Dance of Daggers ->

Image source: Kobo