Title: Once Upon a Curse
Author: E.D. Baker
Series: The Tales of the Frog Princess #3
Rating Out of 5: 4.5 (Amazing, but not quite perfect)
My Bookshelves: Easy reading, Fairy tales, Fantasy
Pace: Medium
Format: Novel
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Year: 2004
5th sentence, 74th page: She’s very particular, our princess Hazel, and she deserves the best.

It is one week before Princess Emma’s birthday, and with it comes the threat of the family curse. Many years before Emma’s time, an angry fairy cursed her ancestor, Princess Hazel. She decreed that Hazel and all her female descendants, upon reaching their sixteenth birthdays, could not touch a flower, or else all their beauty and kindness would be erased. No one before Emma has been powerful enough to find the fairy responsible, or undo her terrible work, but Emma is determined – it’s up to her to reverse the curse. But can she do it in time?

I love this story – it is a great way to round out The Tales of the Frog Princess series. Or at least, I used to think that until I recently discovered that there are another six books. Regardless, this is a nice little end to the curse arc of the story within this series. And still ties in beautifully to the rest of the tale – the swamp fairy, amongst others make another appearance.

I love the time travel aspect to this tale. When you first open one of Baker’s stories, you are already whisked back into an idealised version of medieval times. Yet, this tale takes that one step further – it shows us an even earlier date in this world’s history. Something that I found quite cute and enjoyable. Although, I definitely prefer Emma’s world and her current family and reality.

The way in which the day is won is also incredibly sweet and unexpected. It made me laugh and smile when I read it, and I’m certainly glad that there is another few books to read. After all, Emma might have solved the problem of the curse, but she hasn’t managed to tie the knot or do many, many other things in her role as Green Witch.

Image source: Bloomsbury Publishing

Title: Dragon’s Breath
Author: E.D. Baker
Series: The Tales of the Frog Princess #2
Rating Out of 5: 4.5 (Amazing, but not quite perfect)
My Bookshelves: Easy reading, Fairy tales, Fantasy
Pace: Medium
Format: Novel
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Year: 2003
5th sentence, 74th page: When nothing came out, his eyes took on a wild look.

Princess Emeralda, whose magic is still not quite perfect, is determined to get her favourite aunt, Grassina, back together again with her old beau-turned-otter, Haywood.

But this seemingly simple task becomes an epic quest when Emma discovers the recipe for breaking the spell:
A gossamer hair from mother of pearl,
The breath of a dragon, green.
A feather from an aged horse,
The husk of a magic bean.

From a trip to the bottom of the fishbowl sea to an incredible adventure at the Dragon Olympics, Emma and Prince Eadric, her formerly froggy friend, defy the wily witches and wizards of the magical world and prove that Emma is a witch very much worthy of her inherited powers.

A fast-paced and hilarious companion to The Frog Princess.

As a follow up to The Frog Princess, this is brilliant. It is just as funny, cute and witty as the first story and it takes us further into Emma and Eadric’s world of magic and mayhem. On a journey to break her Grandmother’s spell over Haywood, Emma and Eadric travel all across the magical kingdom to find four incredibly obscure ingredients.

I kind of loved the fact that the ingredients to reverse Olivene’s spell were so obscure and difficult. The poetry in the spell alone was fun to read, but the journey to actually obtain the ingredients… it took my favourite royal couple to many, many corners of the magical world. As I always do, I enjoyed the ways in which our reality is layered into a magical one. It made everything seem at once fantastic, and recognisable at the same time. Especially the magic markets – that is the kind of place that I would really love to visit.

Emma’s transformation from blundering witch-in-training to powerful witch in her own right kind of took me by surprise. I thought that her transformation from girl would take a lot longer in this series. Yet, instead of feeling cumbersome and as a means to a happy ending. It worked really, really well. It was entirely believable and I can’t wait to open the pages of the next book in this series.

Image source: Goodreads