Book Review: Once Upon A [Stolen] Time

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Copy provided by the author in exchange for an honest review. Thank you Samreen Ahsan!


I love fairytale retellings, especially the darker kind, and when Mrs. Samreen approached me, I instantly agreed to read this.

I admit, it took me a while to get into it and even considered giving up on it for a while, but as I crossed the halfway mark, I found myself entranced by the mystery.

Beauty and the Beast with a very dark twist, this tale gives us a love story that transcends time. Told from two different POVs, it takes the reader through 2 time periods, exactly 600 years apart.

The year 1415 - presents us Edward Hue, the last of the Hue royal bloodline.
Living in the cursed Hue Castle, he never stood in the sunshine or held a living flower. Destined to live in darkness and bring death to all he touches, he is at the mercy of his cruel, tyrannical father, who will not rest until he shatters Edward’s soul and makes his son into a diabolical copy of himself. Edward’s one hope is the mysterious woman who haunts his dreams—who will either break his curse and bring him out of the darkness, or destroy him utterly.


The year 2015 - presents us Myra Farrow.
A beautiful young girl obsessed with medieval castles and the kings and princes who once inhabited them. She meets wealthy videogame designer Steve Bernard who wants wants her to model for a princess character in his new game based on the mysterious Hue Castle—a cursed, barren, colorless place forbidden to visitors for centuries; castle that Myra had always wanted to visit but never could.


Within the walls of the castle, the present collides with the past, changing both Myra's and Edward's world in the most unexpected manner.


The story is original and unique. Next to the beauty and the beast spin, and the time travel, it also gives us a magic mirror as well as story weavers and magicians who can capture time, and it combines it all in a beautiful manner.

Unfortunately, it has a few drawbacks that prevent the reader from fully enjoying it. And those are mainly related to language and the characters' emotional development.

Edward's timeline is the year 1415, and yet his speech is more appropriate to our present time.

His vocabulary includes terms that originated way later than the 14 hundreds, like "caliginosity" or "melodrama" for instance. And I found it difficult to picture him as a prince from that time when he also used phrases like "bear all this shit", "he would never spill the beans", or "so my father could buy whatever I was selling him".
At the same time, it was jarring to hear his father, the king asking: "Fancy a drink?"

This phrasing and vocabulary, atypical of that time period, made it difficult to distinguish in between the time lines and cut down from the credibility of the characters.

The emotional development of the characters felt also jarring several times during the story. The instant connection between Myra and Steve, the friendship turned to instant love, the love turned to desire of revenge, they all occurred too sudden and seemed quite unbelievable. It doesn't help either that details like the relationship between Steve and Tyler for instance are never quite fully explained. Gay, not gay, apparently true love or just a ploy, it jumps out and makes the reader pause and wonder.

This story is wonderful as concept and idea, but its darkness is at times overwhelming. It depicts child abuse, as well as physical and psychological torture, for which the tormentor isn't brought to justice. So if you're not comfortable reading about this kind of stuff, this tale is not for you.

All in all, an original and unique tale. It was a bit difficult to get into and even stalled at times, but once the halfway mark was hit, the pace found it's rhythm and the mystery sucked me in. I was a little disappointed by the cliffhanger (*I resent cliffhangers as a rule!*), but am now interested enough to read the sequel.

Check out this book and more of Samreen Ahsan on www.samreenahsan.com