Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press and Wednesday Books for a copy of this book. All opinions in this review are my own.
I am such a sucker for retellings, and retellings of Shakespeare are some of my favorites (outside of fairytales). The tagline for this book is “Forbidden magic, a family secret, and a night to reveal it all…” and it seems like there are a few different reviews that state it is a reimagining of The Tempest. While I am not as familiar with the ins and outs of Tempest, from what I do know about it, this book does follow a lot of the beats really closely.
I did enjoy this book, but it was not, in my opinion, a happy book. I don’t consider Tempest to be one of the tragedies, and I think it is classified as a romance? it was one of his comedies, but I have also seen it classified as a tragicomedy, but this book read as a complete tragedy to me. I don’t know if that is just what I consider to be tragic things, and not what the literary definition of tragedy is, but there was just sadness, and eventual death, this whole book. I kept waiting for some of the romance between some of the main characters but it just wasn’t happening. This was written incredibly well, filled with details & magic, really bringing you into the story, but there was just a lot of information all at once. This is stuffed with details so it can be hard to follow if you aren’t giving it 110% of your attention.
If you want a magical book that has Tempest vibes, but are willing to have a sadder/darker version, this is a fantastic book. If you want more of the romantic & magical vibes, I don’t know if this is quite it.