The Princess Blog

Celeste Baxendell  has been on a role with her Bewitching Fairy Tales series. Her "Cinderella" retelling from last year  remains my favorite "Cinderella" adaptation of all time. Now, she is tackling "Sleeping Beauty" with her latest book, Dreams of Roses . This book stands out from the others in this series as the first one that does not tell a complete story. It ends on a cliffhanger that is teased to conclude in her next book, Thorns of Gold . I find it frustrating when authors do this, and this book was no exception. It felt like it took a very long time for anything to happen, and as soon as something finally did, it ended abruptly. Still, the book offers some unique twists on the classic "Sleeping Beauty" fairy tale. Dreams of Roses  applies the "lost princess" trope  to "Sleeping Beauty." Ro had a pretty good life. She was engaged to a prince and was about to become empress of a great nation. The only problem was the cu...

I received White as Frost  by Anthea Sharp  as part of a neat promotion I signed up for called BOMYA  which allows you to receive free YA fantasy novels in your inbox every month. It sounded too good to be true at first, but it does exactly what it says! This was the second book I received from this mailing list and the first one that I decided to read because it pitched princess protagonists. Though not advertised as such, I quickly recognized it as a retelling of "Snow White and Rose Red," a fairy tale that few people know of and even adapt faithfully, often combining it with "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" for the sake of familiarity. I liked that this book paid loyal tribute to the lesser-known story, but as the first in a trilogy, it suffered from the same issue as many other books do that are meant to introduce a series in that nothing felt resolved at the end. White as Frost  tells the story of Rosaline, who is the alter ego of Rose Red from the "Sno...

It's been a while since I've shared anything new from PattyCake Productions . Using state-of-the-art costume designs, visual effects, and professional actors, this group excels at recreating characters and scenes from classic Disney movies and putting their own spin on them. Their latest series showcases the evolution of various Disney characters through remakes , TV specials , and numerous other sources beginning Cinderella in a video that released on YouTube today called "If the Shoe Fits: The Evolution of Cinderella."  The video features all five of Disney's Cinderella properties including the original 1950 animation , the 2015 remake , the 1997 Rodgers and Hammerstein adaptation featuring Brandy , the 2014 Disney adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods , and the version of Cinderella that was portrayed in ABC's Once Upon a Time . PattyCake has done it again! This music video was absolutely magical and exceeded all of my expectations. It takes...

Dominic's Disappearance is the latest visual novel in the Time Princess app . I beat this story a week ago and  got held up  by  my cruise , so this is not going to be one of my better reviews. I may get some details wrong, and for that, I apologize in advance. This is not one of my favorite stories in Time Princess. As implied by the game's title, I usually hope for new stories from this game based on fairy tales or history . I don't know why they keep releasing these dark murder mysteries  that don't seem to have the same appeal to the game's target audience. This latest entry is pretty depressing but not quite as much as the last one. It tells the story of a girl who is searching for her missing brother. When it becomes clear that no one is going to solve the mystery of Dominic's disappearance for her, Sandra decides to take the matter of finding her brother into her own hands and infiltrates the last place he was seen--an all-boys academy. Donning a disguis...

"Scarlet's Wish" Once upon a time, a princess was born to a king and queen who were expecting a baby as beautiful as her older sister, Rose. Sadly, the new princess was born deformed with red scars across her face and body, so they named her Scarlet. They wanted Scarlet to be as beloved as Rose, but they worried that she might be harassed if she went outside, so they gave her a sheltered life in the castle with the freedom to wander within its walls as she pleased. Rose, on the other hand, was thrust into the royal duties of visiting foreign kingdoms and making public appearances, a task that she often found exhausting. Scarlet grew to be ashamed of her appearance and hid away from royal guests even when her parents invited her to meet them. The two sisters got along well and confided in each other with their troubles. While Rose preferred being out in the sunshine, Scarlet's favorite time to go outside was at night when no one could judge her. She spent her nights st...

While I was making my wish come true on the Disney Wish cruise ship , I missed about a week of blog posts. Most weeks, I don't have a lot to write about besides my weekly book review, but last week happened to be a pretty big one for princess fans. Not only did Disneyland After Dark debut a new hard ticket event called Princess Nite, but the long-awaited full-length trailer was finally released for the upcoming live-action remake of The Little Mermaid  as well. Between those two massive announcements, it looks like I have a lot of catching up to do. Let's get started. Disneyland After Dark is a series of themed hard ticket events at the Disneyland theme park that take place at night after the park closes to regular guests. Attendees of these events must purchase an additional ticket that grants them evening and nighttime access to the park just for the event. I have been to several hard ticket events at both Walt Disney World and Disneyland. The one that has stuck around the...

After giving my lengthy overview of the Disney Wish cruise ship yesterday, I wanted to take some additional time to discuss their exclusive stage show entitled Disney's The Little Mermaid . This was one of the things I was most excited about seeing on the Disney Wish. It's brand new, and there is an embarrassingly small amount of content available for it on the internet. One reason for this is that they don't allow recording of any kind in the theater, so all of the pictures I share in this review will be official promo photos from Disney. Disney has done other stage interpretations of The Little Mermaid  including a Broadway show  and a short stage show at Disney's Hollywood Studios called Voyage of The Little Mermaid , but this was a completely new experience that was unlike anything I've seen before. As audiences look for seats in the Walt Disney Theatre, the empty stage contains a giant treasure chest up front and center with projections of moving ripples on t...

When I heard that Disney was building a new ship called the Disney Wish  with three princess shows, a Frozen restaurant, and princess-themed staterooms, I just knew I had to find a way onboard. Last weekend, my wish came true at last! I embarked on a magical three-night cruise with stops at Port Canaveral in Florida, Nassau in the Bahamas, and Disney's private island, Castaway Cay, and I'm here to tell you everything you need to know about the Disney Wish. Make sure you have plenty of time to read because this will be a long one! For your convenience and mine, I've divided this post into five sections:  The Ship, Shows, Dining, Characters, and the App,  including a new onboard game called Uncharted Adventure . I will not be discussing the ports of call in this post because they did not have any princesses nor did I spend much time at them, but I would be happy to answer any additional questions that I didn't cover in this post in the comments. The Ship The moment I ste...