Dagger's Sleep

Beyond the Tales Series, Book 1

By: Tricia Mingerink

Narrated by: Emily Lawrence

A prince cursed to sleep.

A princess destined to wake him.

A kingdom determined to stop them.

High Prince Alexander has been cursed to a sleep like unto death, a curse that will end the line of the high kings and send the Seven Kingdoms of Tallahatchia into chaos. With his manservant to carry his luggage and his own superior intelligence to aid him, Alex sets off to find one of the Fae and end his curse one way or another.

A hundred years later, Princess Rosanna learns she is the princess destined by the Highest King to wake the legendary sleeping prince. With the help of the mysterious Daemyn Rand, can she find the courage to finish the quest as Tallahatchia wavers on the edge of war?

One curse connects them. A hundred years separate them. From the rushing rivers of Tallahatchia's mountains to the hall of the Highest King himself, their quests will demand greater sacrifice than either of them could imagine.

©2018 Tricia Mingerink (P)2020 Tantor

4.4

This book is a fresh take on two stories, Sleeping Beauty with a small mix of a modified Prodigal Son. It is a fun book with some humor and some sadness.

In this story, the one who sleeps is a prince. The way he is awakened is different than the traditional fairy tale. The fey are angel like, and the king of the fey is God. This is a Christian retelling with Christian imagery and moral principles.

I enjoyed the book, especially the banter between the siblings. I also thoroughly enjoyed the thoughtful approach to the toll outliving everyone takes on a person’s mind and spirit. I loved the Christian symbolism.

I liked the writing but found it overly melodramatic at times, but it is a fairy tale! The pacing was a bit slow for my tastes. I did not like the ending because it seemed to take too long to get to the point.

I could tell a woman wrote the book in some places. The book is set in a quasi Medieval / woodland setting, but the prince had never hunted or been taught to fight. This was not consistent with that type of setting. There are other things like the woman colonel who was the best fighter but defeated by a glass ball then tied up during battle while men were killed. The Prince fails at fighting his nemesis and has to be saved by a woman then tells that same woman to stay where it’s safe as he goes to battle. Little details like that were off in the book, presumably to make the heroines look stronger, but the writing ended up sounding silly instead.

These places were few, though. I found the book thoughtful, entertaining, and fun. The descriptions were extremely well done and created just the right atmosphere for the subject. The reader was very good. Maybe it was her voice though that made me feel the story was a bit overdramatized at times. The narrator did a great job in all. The voices she gave to the characters seemed spot on to me. I recommend this for all who enjoy more mature retellings of fairy tales with strong heroes and heroines. Both the written and audio forms are entertaining.

DESTINY'S DAGGER

THIS IS A APPALACHIAN SLASH FAIRYTALE RETELLING, ROSANNA IS THE DEDTINED CURSEBREAKER TO WAKE THE HIGH PRINCE OF TALLAHACHIA, SHE SETS OUT WITH HER BEST FRIEND WHO IS HER BEST FRIEND AND BODYGUARD, FOUR WARRIORS AND THE CAPTAIN OF HER FATHER'S GUARD, AND A MYSYERIOUS LEGENDARY MAN DEAYMON .
THROUGH A LONG ARDUOUS JOURNEY THE PRINCESS SEEKS HER DESTINY WHILE TRYING TO AVOID A ENEMY RAIDING PARTY. THERE ARE SEVERAL DEATHS AND THE KINGDOMS. SOUND MORE LIKE NATIVE AMERICAN TRIBES, EVERYONE WEARS BUCKSKINS AND MOCCASINS, AND MAKES CANNOES FROM THE BARK OF THE BIRCH TREES. THE STORY FLEXES BETWEEN THE HIGH PRINCE ALEXANDER AND ROSANNA. ONE OF THE BEST PARTS WAS THE WAKING OF THE SLEEPING PRINCELING. AND THE SURPRISE OF JAYDON , WILL TRUE LOVES KISS WAKE
THE HIGH PRINCE WHO WILL BRING PEACE AND PROSPERITY TO THE LAND HE RULES?

I thought it to be about murder from a dagger.

I loved how the Lord is portrayed. He is the curse breaker. Yet it wasn't clear in the end that all curses were broken. For instance. did Bear go ba k to being a bear at night, was Willam able to leave his country, when was loves first kiss)somehow I missed that,) I did enjoy seeing Damen resolve his own flights in the end. I do love the book and will endeavor to add it to my library so I can listen to it over and over again
Thank you for the gift of this book.

Love this book

Good clean writing fun story! This was fun to read. So On to the next!

Disappointing

The book is good, but slow to develop and predictable. Too much of the main character's dialog is dedicated to repeating dialog. It became tiresome. I am a huge fan of The Blades of Acktar series. I had to listen to each book straight through and wanted more when it ended. I was expecting the same level of character development, pace, suspense, and intrigue in Dagger's Sleep. I will not buy any other books in this series.