Thursday, February 9, 2017

Twisted, The Girl Who Uncovered Rumpelstiltskin's Name by Bonnie M. Hennessy

Posted First to Blog Critics as Book Review: 'Twisted, The Girl Who Uncovered Rumpelstiltskin's Name by Bonnie M. Hennessy.

In a tale from childhood, Twisted by Bonnie M Hennessy, takes you on an alternate journey to a dark and bleak tale of love and courage, filled with revenge and regret as well as a strength of spirit.

Looking at the story of Rumpelstiltskin's rage and sadness, you follow The life of Aoife and a different path of how the lives of two such differing characters really came to being.

Aoife, the beloved daughter, is the strength of her family as she takes on the family farm to keep their finances afloat, while at the same time trying to keep her father out of trouble. He is deep in drink and gambling, but Aoife's goodness and strength of heart endears her to all those that see her dilemma.

When a young man of money happens to see her, he decides that she should be his, for unbeknownst to the town he is the Duke of the realm and will have what he fancies. Yet she rebuffs him, and while she has no idea of his identity, she has no time for a man with such airs.  As the Duke determines to have her, he finds a way through the weakness of her father, with both his drink and gambling. Joining the game and urging the poor man gamble his daughter away on a sure hand, all is lost when the hand does not come through. Her father through his muddled thoughts brags of her ability to make gold out of straw, his attempt to brag about her farming, but the Duke understands it to mean something far different.

Aoife, who has always found solace in the woods hides her pain and anger, as nature responds, her spark of spirit draws her magic, that of her kindness and regrets, but it is another, a strange interloper that finds his own home in the forest that takes notice of her pain and anguish as well as her affinity for magic and her beauty. So begins the strange friendship that begins with fondness and love and turns to hate and anger, that takes a tortured soul into the very depths of despair.

As Aoife finds herself in trouble trying to live up the talents her father has bragged of, the stranger from the woods uses his own twisted magic to help. Aoife, soon finds herself in love with the Duke, and with child. The temper of her rescuer from the woods sparks her urgent need to find his name, and takes her into further danger as she tries to save the child of her love.

The twisted tale of love and darkness builds in a direction both like and unlike that of the fairy tale of youth. Hennessy does a great job of holding true to the outline of the work but adds more depth of character, making you feel both appalled and sad, yet as the same time, the tension keeps you intrigues as to how it will all come together.

If you enjoy magic romance and danger, you will love this take on a fairy tale of old. It is darker and more thought provoking, but yet carries that same feel of the fear you felt as a child. Hennessy brings the tale to stark life and into the twentieth century.

This would be a great book for a reading group or book club.

 Bonnie M. Hennessy's Web Site:
http://www.bonniemhennessy.com/Bonnie M. Hennessy's Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/twistedthebook/
Bonnie M. Hennessy's Twitter:
https://www.twitter.com/bonniemhennessy
Bonnie M. Hennessy's Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16075736.Bonnie_M_HennessyBonnie M. Hennessy's YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC23yBSLSEcbE2Bw98_4k-WQTwisted Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32962973-twisted?from_search=true
Tribute Books Blog Tours Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tribute-Books-Blog-Tours/242431245775186

Twisted blog tour site:
http://twistedblogtour.blogspot.com




Bonnie M. Hennessy's Bio: Bonnie grew up a shy, quiet girl who the teachers always seated next to the noisy boys because they knew she was too afraid to talk to anyone. She always had a lot she wanted to say but was too afraid to share it for fear she might die of embarrassment if people actually noticed her. Somewhere along the line, perhaps after she surprised her eighth grade class by standing up to a teacher who was belittling a fellow student, she realized that she had a voice and she didn’t burst into flames when her classmates stared at her in surprise.

Not long after that, she began spinning tales, some of which got her into trouble with her mom. Whether persuading her father to take her to the candy store as a little girl or convincing her parents to let her move from Los Angeles to Manhattan to pursue a career at eighteen as a ballet dancer with only $200 in her pocket, Bonnie has proven that she knows how to tell a compelling story.


 
Twisted Book Summary:
Now she spends her time reading and making up stories for her two children at night. By day she is an English teacher who never puts the quiet girls next to the noisy boys and works hard to persuade her students that stories, whether they are the ones she teaches in class or the ones she tells to keep them from daydreaming, are better escapes than computers, phones, and social media.
An old tale tells the story of how a little man named Rumpelstiltskin spun straw into gold and tricked a desperate girl into trading away her baby. But that’s not exactly how it happened.

The real story began with a drunken father who kept throwing money away on alcohol and women, while his daughter, Aoife, ran the family farm on her own. When he gambled away everything they owned to the Duke, it was up to her to spin straw into gold to win it all back.

With her wits and the help of a magical guardian, she outsmarted the Duke and saved the day.

Well almost… Her guardian suddenly turned on Aoife and sent her on a quest to find his name, the clues to which were hidden deep in the woods, a moldy dungeon, and a dead woman’s chamber.

This is not the tale of a damsel in distress, but a tenacious, young woman who solved a mystery so great that not even the enchanted man who spun straw into gold could figure it out.

Not until Aoife came along.
Prices/Formats: $2.99 ebook, $12.99 paperback
Genre:
Fantasy, Mythological, Fairy Tale
Pages:
306
Release:
November 11, 2016
Publisher:
self-published
ISBN:
9781539753421

Amazon buy link:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N3MC1K4?&tag=tributebooks-20

1 comment:

Tribute Books said...

Leslie, thanks for the review!