Enchanted
by Alethea Kontis
Read by Katherine Kellgren
Listening Length: 7 hours and 51 minutes
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Audible.com Release Date: May 8, 2012
ASIN: B0081CDUII
Genre: Fantasy
My Rating: 4.25 of 5.0
Audie Award Nominee, Best Teens Category, 2013
It isn't easy being Sunday's child, not when you're the rather overlooked and unhappy youngest sibling to sisters named for the other six days of the week. Sunday's only comfort is writing stories, although what she writes has a terrible tendency to come true. When Sunday meets an enchanted frog who asks about her stories, the two become friends. Soon that friendship deepens into something magical.
One night, Sunday kisses her frog goodbye and leaves, not realizing that her love has transformed him back into Rumbold, the crown prince of Arilland - and a man Sunday's family despises. The prince returns to his castle, intent on making Sunday fall in love with him as the man he is, not the frog he was. But Sunday is not so easy to woo. How can she feel such a strange, strong attraction to this prince she barely knows? And what twisted secrets lie hidden in his past - and hers?
©2012 Alethea Kontis; (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Review:
Enchanted is a charming story of the woodcutter’s seven daughters and sons, focusing on the youngest daughter, Sunday. The story incorporates features of many well known fairy tales, including the frog prince, the bean stalk, Cinderella’s lost slipper and many more.
Each of the girls relates to the character traits stated in the old name rhyme. Sunday generally lives up to being 'bonnie and blithe and good and gay' even though she doesn’t always want to be good and gay. She wants more than sitting at home and doing chores. She loves the stories her father tells and writes her own thoughts and stories in a journal. She is careful to write the history of her family as there is some suspicion about what happens if she writes about possible future events.
Sunday finds a frog in the woods and begins a friendship, reading him her stories. She kisses him a few times but nothing happens. One day she kisses him and rushes home not realizing that the spell has finally been broken by their love for each other.
Prince Rumbold, restored from his frog state, returns to the castle where he has learn to live again as a young man. He also has to face the dark forces that included the spell. The Prince wants to go after Sunday but he knows her family resents the King and everyone at the palace. Can the Prince and his friends stop the evil before another of Sunday’s siblings is lost? Will he be able to convince Sunday to love him as a human and leave her family to be with him?
I really enjoyed this fun fantasy. There were twists and turns and varied interesting talents of Sunday and her siblings need to use to defeat the dark magic. The whole story was entertaining.
I received this audiobook through the SYNC Audio Program in August, 2013, paired with the Classic: THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS by Lewis Carroll, Narrated by Miriam Margolyes (Bolinda Audio).
This is part of my 2015 Audiobook Challenge, the 2015 TBR Pile Challenge and the TBR Double Dog Dare.
