Charming by Jade Linwood – Review

Published: July 18, 2023

Publisher: Solaris

Series: N/A

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 307 (Kindle)

My Rating: 3 Stars

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis:
9 to 5 with fairy tale princesses in a delightful comic fantasy revenge/heist!

Brave, Resourceful, Deceitful, Double-Crossing… Charming.

Prince Jean-Marc Charming Arundel, known to friends and enemies alike as “Prince Charming,” is handsome, well-mannered, brave, a peerless swordsman, a cunning tactician – and a liar, a con man and a fraud. For years he has been travelling from one kingdom to the next, rescuing endangered princesses and maidens, securing their troths and his place in their fathers’ palaces, then looting their treasuries and having it away before dawn.

Until a chance meeting of three of his victims – raven-haired Marie Blanche de Neige, the sorceress Doctor Emilia Rapunzel and the long-slumbering Bella Lucia dei’ Sogni – suggests a course of revenge…

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This is the second rogue-ish fairytale mashup that I’ve read in 2023 and I must say, I like this microtrend. Charming tells the tale of three women fleeced by the handsome titular prince and how they work together to exact their revenge. The initial 30-40% of the story introduces us to Lady Bella dei’ Sogni, Doctor Emilia Rapunzel, and Princess Marie Blanche de la Neige and the various circumstances by which they were saved by Prince Charming and were then subsequently robbed.

 I appreciated the opportunity to get such a detailed backstory for each of our leading ladies and found each of them to be likable characters, though Lady Bella always tried to see the good in a person and it made her seem terribly naive. This did, however, throw off the pacing because we spend so long fleshing out Bella, Rapunzel, and Marie Blanche’s histories that everything seems to move far too quickly once they actually set off to enact their revenge on Charming.

Prince Charming himself has a somewhat vague backstory and he’s mostly just presented as a smooth talking con-man who’s largely successful thanks to his magical sidekick Roland. Yes, he’s certainly brave enough to rescue these three ladies (and so many more) from unfortunate circumstances but he’s naught but a scoundrel. For my tastes, he was too shallow to be a proper villain. I wish he had been given enough of a past to make me feel like he was more than a cardboard cut out of a handsome con-man. Even the bit towards the end that explains his motivation behind all the elaborate rescues and robberies was too little too late. 

This was a fun read that kept me entertained the entire six days it took me to read this thanks to a suddenly very busy schedule. Despite my slow progress, I found I wanted to come back and pick this up to see what would happen next. While this isn’t going to make any favorites lists, I had a good time reading it and I think it would make a fun beach read!