Joining Authonomy was my first step into the wider writing community. I know I’ve raved about the site before, but it really was a fantastic place at the time I was there. (Well, at the time I was active, anyway – I’m still actually there, but I haven’t logged in in ages.) Anyway, as a result of getting to know so many other authors, I’ve been introduced to some truly wonderful friends and some truly magical books.

Spindle, the first book in the Two Monarchies series, is one such book:

Polyhymnia is deep in enchanted sleep. High in a tower, behind an impenetrable barrier of magical thorns, she sleeps, dreams, and falls ever deeper into her curse.

Woken by a kiss, Poly finds herself in an alien world where three hundred years have passed and everyone she has ever known is dead. Luck, the enchanter who woke her, seems to think she is the princess. Understandable, since he found her asleep on the princess’ bed, in the royal suite, and dressed in the princess’ clothes.

Who cursed Poly? Why is someone trying to kill her and Luck? Why can’t she stop falling asleep?

And why does her hair keep growing?

Sometimes breaking the curse is just the beginning of the journey.

I read this book in a weekend. Well, mostly in a weekend. If getting up for work wasn’t already super difficult, I’d have stayed up all night to finish it. I loved the language of the story and the fact that I had to look up a few of the words just to confirm that I was correct in guessing their meaning (belike, bespoke, etc.). I loved the story, too, with its nods to Sleeping Beauty. It was endlessly fun to read, and I absolutely hated having to put it down before I was finished.

Gushing aside, there were a few things that niggled at me, but they’re really very minor. Things like an overused word here and there (“behind them” appearing twice in the same sentence springs to mind) and the occasional funky paragraph break sometimes tripped me up, but I got used to the formatting. Occasionally I had trouble keeping up with the story, but I suspect that was due more to the many distractions my children provided and not to some defect in the story. (Unless, of course, I was supposed to be as confused as Poly, which I was quite often…)

Would I recommend this story? Absolutely. But make sure you have some peace and quiet in which to read it. And maybe a full weekend to properly devote to it so that you won’t have to worry about pesky things like sleep and work schedules. 😉 😀

You can get your copy of Spindle at CreateSpace, Amazon, iBooks, Kobo, or Smashwords.

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