Good afternoon, Arrowheads! After signing up to join the Dagger’s Sleep and Dissociate blog tour, I was pleasantly surprised to receive ARC copies of both books, despite that I had signed up for an author interview. At the time of signing up, I had never read anything by Tricia Mingerink, and only signed up to do an interview with the author of Dissociate for the blog tour; however, if the future provides an opportunity for me to host both authors again on my blog, I’d be honored! So, without any further delay, let’s review Dagger’s Sleep!

Dagger’s Sleep is an insanely creative retelling of the classic fairytale, Sleeping Beauty, where the High Prince of the seven kingdoms of Tallahatchia is cursed by a fallen fae at birth. The High Prince—Alex’s– curse is somewhat similar to Aurora’s in Sleeping Beauty, though his describes that he’ll be rendered into “a sleep like unto death” when he pricks his finger on his dagger on his twenty-first birthday. In order to prevent his curse from occurring, Prince Alex and his loyal manservant, Jadon, venture off to locate the fae to remove the curse.

Who is to save High Prince Alex? A princess of one of the seven kingdoms of Tallahatchia, 100 years to the day later. When she is located by Daemon Rand, the son of one of her father’s close friends, and told that she is the Cursebreaker, Princess Rosanna is confused. While her brothers and every other royal she knew had received a blessing or curse from the fae upon birth, she had not. Is being the Cursebreaker her curse?

In order to break the High Prince’s curse, Princess Rosanna—along with Daemon, her bodyguard/best friend, Isi, and kingdom guards—venture off on a quest to Castle Eyota, the resting place of High Prince Alex. On the way, they must work to avoid the Tuckawassee, a rebellious kingdom that has worked to overthrow the crown of the High King for generations. The journey is long and treacherous and makes for an epic adventure!

For fear of spoilers, I won’t go into the details of the journey. From this point on, I’ll cover the highlights and lowlights:

Highlights:

• The World Building: The world that the author created for Dagger’s Sleep was phenomenally crafted. The kingdoms of Tallahatchia were described as a mix of Native American cultures and was located in the heart of the mountains. I feel this is particularly unique for a Sleeping Beauty retelling, as it is usually set somewhere in Europe.
• Jadon: Oh, how I loved Jadon! ❤ One word to describe Jadon: Loyal. He puts everyone else’s needs above his own and has the epitome of a servant’s heart. He is by far my favorite character!
• The Descriptions: The author has a true gift for writing beautiful descriptions. Some of my favorites were when she was describing the Beyond (meant to symbolize Heaven), and when she was describing the forest’s song.
• Plot Twists: Genius. Absolute genius! Y’all are gonna freak out! 😀
• Berend’s Bear Curse: It was hilarious to see Berend—Princess Rosanna’s brother—trying to explain things to her in his bear form! XD
• Prince Alex’s Character Arc: I really appreciated Alex’s growth throughout his journey. It was a much-needed change that I’m sure the entire kingdom of Tallahatchia will appreciate.
• Christian Allegory: I loved the connections the author made to Christianity. I don’t want to elaborate on it too much to spoil anything, but if you’re a fan of Christian allegories, you’ll love this!

 

Lowlights:

• Pacing: It took me a while to get into the story, but I’m attributing some of that to my lack of reading time when I first picked up the book. The story really began to pick up for me somewhere around the 150-170 page mark. After that though, I was hooked! 🙂
• Connecting with Rosanna: Personally, I couldn’t relate to Rosanna as much as some of the other characters, but it got better towards the end.

 

Overall, I really enjoyed being introduced to Tricia Mingerink’s writing through Dagger’s Sleep and am looking forward to reading her Blades of Acktar series in the future! My final rating is 4.5 out of 5 stars. I usually don’t give half-star ratings on books, but I was very torn between 4 and 5 stars on this one! 😀

Thank you to the author for providing me with an ARC for participating in her blog tour. A review was not required to receive the ARC, and all the aforementioned thoughts are my own.

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Are you a Christian author looking for reviews? If so, feel free to message me over at my Contact page!

Be sure to check back soon with my next Indie reviews for the short story Quest for Leviathan by Amanda Tero, and  A Week of Werewolves, Faeries, and Fancy Dresses by Nicki Chapelway! 😀

-Allyson 😀