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The Night Dance Once Upon a Time Suzanne Weyn Mahlon F Craft Books

Download As PDF : The Night Dance Once Upon a Time Suzanne Weyn Mahlon F Craft Books

The Night Dance Once Upon a Time Suzanne Weyn Mahlon F Craft Books

I'm a longtime fan of historical fiction, having grown up reading Frank G. Slaughter, and Elizabeth George Speare. I'll read about nearly any era, but several grab my attention faster than others, one of those being the medieval era.

Growing up, like many young girls, I devoured fairy tales alongside my beloved historical fictions. Most girls were talking about Cinderella, and Snow White. I was telling my younger sisters the tales of The Nightingale, East o' the Sun West o' the Moon, and The Twelve Dancing Princesses.

My sister shares my love of fairy tales, and one day she told me about this one. When she told me that it was a YA fairytale (score!), about the Twelve Dancing Princesses (yes, yes!), mixed with the Legend of Arthur (Woooooooooooot!) I bought it that same week.

I enjoyed even more thoroughly than I had anticipated, and The Once Upon a Time Series has become one of my quickest YA fairytale recommendations!


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The Night Dance Once Upon a Time Suzanne Weyn Mahlon F Craft Books Reviews

THE NIGHT DANCE by Suzanne Weyn is perhaps the most interesting re-telling of the TWELVE DANCING PRINCESSES fairy tale. Ms Weyn blends part of the Arthurian legend of the Lady of the Lake with the story in surprising and interesting ways. What a concept!

What a disappointment! The ending seemed rushed and the quality of the writing was far below the beginning of the novel, mainly because it sounded jarringly modern. I quote

At the end of the wedding party, Sir Ethan announced that he would be leaving with Vivienne, though they most certainly would be in touch. Any of the girls who wanted to come with them and study mystical ways were welcome...Gwendolyn, Helewise, Chloe, Isolde and Mathilde thought life on Avalon sounded exciting, though.
"Could Ione, Brianna, Bronwyn, Cecily and I stay here at the manor?" asked Ashlynn...we'd like to turn the place into an inn."
There was a murmur of approval as this seemed like it would be a fun enterprise.

If only Ms. Weyn had taken the time to polish the prose. Three stars.
This is my favorite of the Once Upon a Time series. It was a combination of stories that I was only vaguely aware of. There were a lot of references to Arthur and the Lady of the Lake as well as the main story of the 12 Dancing Princesses. I thought that the characters were well developed and I thought each of the internal stories were finalized in a satisfactory way, which I didn't get in other stories of the series.
I've enjoyed each book I've read so far in the "Once Upon A Time" series of reworked fairy tales. I enjoyed "The Night Dance" as well but it wasn't at all what I had hoped for. I have appreciated the new ideas and plot twists in each story and delighted in seeing how each story changed, and (in some cases) improved the fairy tales I knew. The story of "The Twelve Dancing Princesses" doesn't completely work when mixed with characters from Arthurian tales of the Knights of the Round Table. "The Night Dance" feels like two disjointed and separate tales being mashed together. The actual book still read quickly and when I wasn't puzzled by what was happening, I enjoyed the sisters and I loved the part where the suitors had to figure out how the sisters were ruining their slippers every night. I love magical stories but I feel like the "Arthur" magic is different in feel from fairy tale magic. Overall the book was enjoyable for what it was but it would have made more sense for the author to have written two different "Once Upon A Time" books....one based on Arthur and the other on Twelve Dancing Princesses.
Lately, I've been exploring the world of rewritten and revised children's stories, most of which are the fairy tales that most of us grew up with. One of my favorites is by Hans Christian Anderson, about the twelve princesses who drove their father mad by appearing every morning with their slippers in tatters -- after being locked in their bedroom every night.

Sir Ethan finds himself chasing a boar in the middle of a dense forest when the boar rolls on the ground, creating a lake and transforming into a beautiful woman. She is Vivienne, a sorceress from Avalon, and both she and Sir Ethan fall in love with one another. Sir Ethan settles down with her, and builds a home of peace, while Vivienne quickly drops a litter of twins every year, each one a girl, until six years have passed, and there are twelve little girls about the place, that she calls her 'princesses.'

But when the youngest pair are toddlers, Vivienne is wandering in the woods near her home, when she is attacked by her sister, the wicked Morgan La Fay. Morgan imprisons Vivienne in the lake, creating a barrier that prevents her from either returning to the mortal world, or going on to Avalon. And heartbroken Sir Ethan finds himself with twelve motherless daughters to raise.

Thinking that Vivienne has willingly abandoned him and his daughters, he decides to imprison his children in his manor house, by enclosing them in high walls, and never letting them enter the outside world. And the youngest, Rowena, grows up filled with a hunger to break out of the walls that surround her.

When she finds a crack in the wall, she steathily chips away at it until she can escape into the woods. There she meets the one survivor of King Arthur's Round Table -- Bedivere, wounded in mind and spirit, and seeking to return the sword Excalibur to the Lady of the Lake.

How it all ties into the twelve princesses who slip away at night to dance their slippers to shreds is the second half of this short novel. There's not a lot of humor -- save for some antics by Morgan trying to disguise herself as a mouse to discover how to imprison Vivienne and her daughters for good -- and due to the fact that the novel is under two hundred pages in length does not leave a lot of room for character development.

That's one of the major flaws of the novel. While it does have a strong start to the story, by the end, it has all fallen apart. The imagry isn't that vivid, and the entire narrative is forced. The princesses are little more than cyphers, with only the eldest, Eleanore, and the youngest, Rowena, having any sort of things to do besides looking pretty and being rather simple. Even Morgan and Vivienne are rather lifeless, and Bedivere isn't much more than a handsome stud for Rowena to fall instantly in love with, but there isn't any underlaying passion to explain why they fall for one another.

Marketed for young adults in a series called "Once Upon a Time...," I found this one to be a grave disappointment. There's some magic, and the bare bones of the story, but author Suzanne Weyn seems to be having a hard time deciding if she is writing a novel set in the Arthurian mythos, or reworking a classic fairy tale. Robin McKinley in her anthology The Door in the Hedge did a far finer retelling of the story, with far more mystery and magic to it, and in far fewer pages as well.

Summing up, I would only recommend this if you have a teenage reader who is entertained by fairy tales, but otherwise, stay with the original story. It's far more entertaining.
I'm a longtime fan of historical fiction, having grown up reading Frank G. Slaughter, and Elizabeth George Speare. I'll read about nearly any era, but several grab my attention faster than others, one of those being the medieval era.

Growing up, like many young girls, I devoured fairy tales alongside my beloved historical fictions. Most girls were talking about Cinderella, and Snow White. I was telling my younger sisters the tales of The Nightingale, East o' the Sun West o' the Moon, and The Twelve Dancing Princesses.

My sister shares my love of fairy tales, and one day she told me about this one. When she told me that it was a YA fairytale (score!), about the Twelve Dancing Princesses (yes, yes!), mixed with the Legend of Arthur (Woooooooooooot!) I bought it that same week.

I enjoyed even more thoroughly than I had anticipated, and The Once Upon a Time Series has become one of my quickest YA fairytale recommendations!