The Salamander Prince
-series: Refurbished Fairy Tales Book 1
-by S.R. Nulton

I liked the Salamander Prince. It had a calm and relaxed tone about the writing. It was almost passive in the story telling with very little overt action and a great deal more introspection. Which in the right mood is a joy to read. 

I liked the strong female enchantress that we follow as she is abruptly married to a cursed salamander and then forced to leave her home in the woods. Grace is a charming character, faulted, powerful and with a wicked sense of humor. She is great. 

As Grace travels from her cottage on the edge of the forest to a new kingdom, she passes through some different lands with some different kinds of people. I liked that each land was known for something, greed, military, family… There were some interesting locations visited in the story. 

What first struck me was a line from the prologue, “It’s a tale of broken souls and corruption that pitted brother against brother.” I kept waiting for things to go wrong. I kept waiting for some terrible betrayal. But the story ran smoothly. It never actually felt like the characters were playing for high stakes. The abundance of magic was always present to smooth over problems (or cause them when the plot needed a push). It was a very quiet feeling story. 

Also, I am still not clear on this twin soul thing going on in the family. Two brothers, sharing one soul? Other than feeling a connection to each other, what does it mean? I suppose it was only there to explain the dark magic of pitting the brothers against each other. 

To be clear, the Salamander Prince is a retelling of the Frog Prince. Which it supposedly combines with King Thrushbeard, but as I am not familiar with that story I cannot confirm. However, it is clear that this is part of a bigger world retelling many familiar fairy tales, some of which are set up as Grace walks her way through the plot. 

The book was sweet. Grace was charming. Her husband, the salamander, was fine – but far from memorable. Overall I would give this 3.5 stars out of 5. It might be interesting to see what else is happening in this world by reading some of the others in this series.