Tales From the Kingdoms: Poison, Charm, Beauty

Just brilliant!Beautifully written, dark and delicious.Love Sarah Pinborough's work.

These 3 books are interwoven in an engaging way. The stories - though well known - have a different take on them which is refreshing and modern.I enjoyed the series and will look out for more by this author

Amazing book.. Anyone who is a Disney fan love it, I can't put it down.

Delivery very fast. I've already read in Portuguese this book and now I wanna try in English.

Tales From the Kingdom is a set of three 200-300 page retellings of Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. Let’s just call it the overall idea of Disney, with a terrifying touch of Grimms Fairy Tales and the drama and spice of Once Upon a Time. i felt like all the stories had a really great mix of the idea of ‘happily ever after’ with the stark realities of real life and the idea of monsters hiding in the closet. There was some romance, lust, sex as well as friendship, danger and lunacy.I think my overall favourite of the three was Charm which was Cinderella’s retelling. Cinderella was a complex character with ideas above her station and she wasn’t a simpering, charming girl the way I always thought to be. She had unkind thoughts as well as kind and was a bit selfish in ways her step-sisters were not. That brings me to Cinderella’s family and the backstory of her family which was great. There was a real history there that I loved and I really liked that the step-mother and step-sister weren’t these ugly and wicked people like they’re always portrayed. Cinderella’s character development was the best out of all the characters in the tales (frankly I feel like the Prince learnt absolutely nothing but thank goodness he married someone who could give him the kick up the bum he would need now and again) and I really saw her grow from a selfish girl with selfish ideals into a young woman with a better idea of the world and that sometimes dreams should stay as dreams.I really loved the inclusion of other fairytales within the three tales such as the mention of the gingerbread house, Hansel and Gretel, Red Riding Hood, Beauty and the Beast, Robin Hood and even Rapunzel. They were all wrapped up as part of the story really well and I enjoyed the subtle way they were connected.I would definitely recommend reading the three tales one after another as they read as one big book with three different parts and they are all connected to each other in a way that may be confusing if you read them out of order.

Okay you guys, I don't know what I was expecting when I opened this book, maybe something like Once Upon A Time...but oh my God these where so much better than I was envisioning! They have gorgeous illustrations throughout the book, to match the gorgeous cover! Each of the stories is fast paced, has a modern feel, and is dark and brilliantly twisted from what we know of the original stories and in general plot wise! Not to mention they're just a liiiiittle bit steamy, which I wasn't expecting! I love how all of the main characters in the story connect throughout the three stories, and how there's appearances from other fairy tale characters that we know from other stories! These stories are completely brilliantly written, and are imaginative and just easy to get lost in as a standard fairy tale! These stories just kept on surprising me, I pretty much read all three in one sitting and I'm kinda desperate for more!In Poison we get the Queen's POV which makes you feel for her a little bit too, she wasn't completely remorseless and she was an intriguing and complex character, which made a nice change to how she's usually portrayed. Snow White is different to the usual and so is the Huntsman and the Prince? Don't even get me started!In Charm we see some of the characters that we've already met and I mean..I thought other characters being mixed in was brilliantly done but in this book we see how all the main characters fit together in this world and it's so well done! This one made for more surprising twists, the ugly step sisters aren't quite so ugly or mean and Cinderella isn't quite so perfect as she is in the Disney movie.In Beauty we take a trip back to what the Prince and the Huntsman where getting up to before we came across them in Poison, it's kind of like a prequel I guess! I loved all the twists to this one again, it was completely freaking brilliant how the author portrayed Beauty and the Beast! Not to mention a couple of other characters!Like I keep saying, this collection of stories is completely brilliant and if you like fairy tale's and twisted fairy tales or retellings or whatever, I think you're gonna love these new offerings! SO FREAKING BRILLIANT!

Ms Pinborough hat in den drei Romanen, die hier zusammen gefasst sind, die Märchen von (vorwiegend) Schneewittchen, Aschenbrödel und Dornröschen neu erzählt und ineinander (und mit anderen Märchen) verwoben. Sie folgt damit einem Trend aus Comics (z.B. Fables) und Fernsehen. Die Fragen, die sich im Klappentext stellen (z.B. Welche Sorte Prinz steht schon auf scheintote junge Mädchen?), haben in Verbindung mit den guten Erfahrungen mit den bisherigen Romanen von Ms Pinborough dazu geführt, dass ich das Buch gekauft habe.zum Positiven: Die Beziehungen der Figuren, ihre abgewandelten Motive und Persönlichkeiten passen gut, sind teilweise auch originell und man versucht schon in vorhinein zu erahnen, welche Märchenfigur sich in welcher Person versteckt. Die Romane sind kurz und bündig. Die Twists am Ende sind nett. Und das endgültige Schicksal der Bösen Königin ist erfreulich.zum nicht so Positiven: Der Qualitätsunterschied vom ersten zum letzten Band ist beträchtlich. Hätte ich nur Poison (Schneewittchen) gelesen, hätte ich wohl "Machwerk" gemurmelt und mich geärgert. Je weiter sich die Geschichte aber von den Märchen entfernt, je mehr Zwischenbeziehungen sich auftun, desto besser passt es für mich. Insgesamt ist es dann fast rund.zum Schlechten: Die in regelmäßigen Abschnitten eingestreuten Sex-Szenen sind so unglaublich plump und deplaziert, dass man an einen italienischen Porno erinnert wird. Das ist ganz eindeutig nicht die Stärke von Ms Pinborough. Die Szenen werden kilometerweit vorher angekündigt und sind auf dem schwülstigen Niveau eines 16jährigen. (Das ist ja, glaube ich, auch das Zielpublikum für dieses Buch). Sie tragen auch in den wenigsten Fällen wirklich etwas zur Handlung bei.Fazit: Schon deutlich bessere Bücher von Ms Pinborough gelesen, aber immer noch gute, wenn auch anspruchslose Unterhaltung.

Wonderful condition and great value. A win win!