Product Details:
- Title: Swan and Shadow: A Swan Lake Story
- Author: Kaki Olsen
- Paperback: 304 pages
- Genre: fairytale, young adult
- Publisher: Cedar Fort, Inc. (March 8, 2016)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1462118143
- FTC, FYI: I received a review e-copy in exchange for an honest review.
Book Details:
Aislin is cursed. A regular college student at night and a swan during the day, Aislin can only break the curse by finding her true love. But when her beloved discovers the truth, will his fear override their love? This modern adaptation of Swan Lake will help you discover what love really means.
My Review:
I have liked many of the fairy tale re-tellings that have been written the past several years. I was looking forward to reading this one too. It started off exciting, but a bit confusing, I couldn't always tell who the POV was from. The story is being told from the POV of twins sisters Aislin and Maeve, the problem is you aren't sure which is which. You go through several chapters before the characters are truly introduced and you find out what is happening.
Twin, Aislin, who has become a victim of the ancient family curse, turns into a swan during the day and back into a human at night. She needs true love to break the curse. Her whole family supports her by coming to her rescue when she gets into trouble or is hurt because of the curse.The twin sisters, despite everything that is happening, have a very close relationship. I loved the way that they were so loyal to each other. I only wish that the magic of the curse had played a bigger part of the story. The plot has so much potential that was wasted.The bulk of the story is about things normal teens worry about: boyfriends, make-up, clothes, hanging out with friends and going to school. I think that teens will like the story and be able to relate to much of the story and the normal teen-age angst running throughout the story. Adults will be less patient with the story and the ending where Aislin finally spills the beans about the curse to her boyfriend,but there is no true resolution,which in turn leads towards a sequel. I hope that the sequel explores more of the magical side of the curse.
Meet the Author:Kaki Olsen
Kaki Olsen is always on the brink of another adventure. If she couldn't be a writer, she'd be a full-time musician or travel guide and she would take her lunch breaks at Fenway Park. Until that happens, she speaks both Spanish and English at her every-day office job, but she has vacationed enthusiastically in such places as Istanbul and Ireland. She has lived in five states, but will always refer to Boston as home.
She regularly contributes
academic papers on zombies or wizards to Life, the Universe and
Everything, a sci-fi/fantasy symposium originated at her alma mater,
Brigham Young University. Her published works have appeared in such
magazines as Voices and AuthorsPublish.She is a doting aunt and librarian of two bulging bookshelves.
Fun Facts from Kaki:
"I don't actually know when I saw Swan Lake for
the first time. I remember dancing the dying swan in the ice cream
aisle at Safeway in Lake Oswego, OR with my best friend when I was 9.
The first time I remember seeing Swan Lake was with the Boston Ballet at
the Wang Center when I was 11. Mom picked me up from the annual
Stringfest and I loved the dancing more than the plot. I saw it with
the American Ballet Company at Lincoln Center in NYC when I went there
for vacation a few years ago, but the last time I saw Swan Lake live was
at BYU. They had two different people doing Odette/Odile, which is
unusual, but it's one of the most convincing Odiles I've ever seen."
"Today's trivia is about names/heritage: In a really fun interview I did
over the weekend, I was asked why I put a girl under a Romanian curse,
but gave her a very Irish background. The original reason for this is
that I decided to browse bird-related surnames of the world and stumbled
across Byrne, which means "raven." Since Boston is so darn Irish
(Our basketball team is the Celtics, for crying out loud!), I decided
that worked very well. I immediately looked up my favorite Irish names.
One of them took me back to 9th grade, when I helped out at a
neurology symposium in Boston. Most of my duties involved handing
people nametags or helping them pay admission. I met a 6-year-old girl
whose parents were attending and she told me her name was Aislin. I
thought it was the prettiest thing I'd ever heard. When I went looking
for good Irish things to call my character, I found that her name means
"dream." Maeve means "intoxicating." Around the time that I was
writing the book, Kate told me that she could see the sisters having an
annoying older brother and, mostly inspired by a good friend who is part
git and part therapist, I wrote Brendan (whose name means "prince") as
the third kid in the family. A few weeks later, I was in the Crest and
Arms shop in Dublin, looking at heraldry, and discovered that the Byrne
shield has three hands on it. I decided that it was a sign that there
had been meant to be three kids."
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