Tamsyn Muir

Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower

When the witch built the forty-flight tower, she made very sure to do the whole thing properly. Each flight contains a dreadful monster, ranging from a diamond-scaled dragon to a pack of slavering goblins. Should a prince battle his way to the top, he will be rewarded with a golden sword--and the lovely Princess Floralinda. But no prince has managed to conquer the first flight yet, let alone get to the fortieth. In fact, the supply of fresh princes seems to have quite dried up. And winter is closing in on Floralinda...

Did you like the Paper Bag Princess growing up? Did you wish it had a non binary fairy and 38 more things to fight and wise cracks and lasted a lot longer? Well look no further because this feels like the expanded fan fiction version of the kids book that made me want to fight the dragon myself, and it was everything I wanted it to be and written by one of my favourite authors so who could complain?

Apiecalypse Jen

Nicholas Hanemann

Excellent writing, as I'd expect from Muir, and lovely narration as well from Quirk. Still a somewhat tired genre, but easily the best of the bunch.

dead line

Princess Floralinda is just built different.

Great book. I think Muir's style shines better in a shorter story.

Cobweb has the qualities of being a serious and stroppy being, while also being a cute fairy. I love this combo. Her (their?its?) plans for burning a tree had me chuckling, and this being her earnest show of malice made it even better.

One criticism I have, is that while I really enjoyed all the characters (all 3), they spoke with what felt like the same voice. I could feel Muir behind the words of each character. Not as big an issue here as in her other books though.

Terry Pratchett finally has some much longed-for competition: 5 stars for enormous charm and humor! I loved pretty much everything about this, so much fun to listen to. If you want to give Tamsyn Muir a try and don't want to commit to a full long novel, check out this wonderful, snarky novelette.

Elodia

Received an eARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I read the description a few times and I thought I knew where this was going, but I was still surprised. I was not expecting the turn it took.

Tamsyn Muir's writing is hard to get into and I had to reread a few passages, but the story made up for that. I did like many of the descriptions the author used, as it made the story more atmospheric. The author was very sarcastic at times and made fun of classic fairy tale tropes.

Even though the story was contained in one small room, with some adventures to the lower flights, it was action-packed and there was always something interesting that made me keep reading. I wish some of the flights were delved more into since the author focused a lot on some but rushed through others. I liked seeing how the two characters survived the tower, from day to day activities to fighting the monsters.

The characters were unique and fun. Princess Floralinda had fascinating character development for such a short book. She went from naive and sometimes had really funny and dumb thoughts, to a strong character. Cobweb was funny and had some of the best quotes. 

The ending completely took me by surprise, Princess Floralinda got a different ending than I'd have thought, but it was a fun twist.

Ben Nathan

Absolutely awesome. Funny and thoughtful with just the right amount of self-awareness. I had a general idea of where it was going but still found myself pleasantly surprised at how it was handled. Definitely a top novella this year.

Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower

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