It’s time to talk about dragons and fairytales for my MTMC Tours stop for Dragon By Midnight by Karen Kincy.
I am a huge fan of both dragons and fairy tales, and this retelling wins because Cinderella herself is turned into a dragon. I enjoyed this twist immensely 😂👌🏻 Plus the story retells both Cinderella x Aladdin, in a neat combination. Dragon by Midnight is also out now, so it’s the perfect time to add it to your 2022 tbr piles.
From beauty to beast in less than a minute.
The story starts off with Cinderella cautiously entering Prince Charming’s ball. Prince Benedict is handsome, rich, and royal — everything the girls of the kingdom could want, but Cinderella has an agenda. She wants to buy her family home back and turn it into a bed and breakfast (I seriously respect this) and spite her evil step-mother. I loved how straight away there were fun differences to the original tale, so you get the comfort of familiarity PLUS a totally new plot to keep you turning pages. After the curse kicks in and Cinderella flees the ball in scales and wings, we launch into a plot that includes travelling, hiding out in the woods, running for your life, library trips, and an array of interesting characters to meet.
Cinderella is a total cinnamon roll with a heart of gold, and she’s too soft to be a dragon. She’s horrified at the idea of her own claws, let alone devouring animals. She just wants to drink tea and start a bed and breakfast okay 😭 It’s always nice reading about girls who are sweethearts, so I enjoyed that. But with Cinderella pretty useless on her own as a dragon, she’s going to need help to break this curse.
Meet Sikandar! He is a sorcerer from a far land, come to find a magicked stone that will solve all his problems. The kingdom agrees to give it to him if he breaks Cinderella’s curse. He just has to do that before the prince slays the dragon.
“Cinderella.” He lifted both hands. “I’m not a threat to you. But Prince Charming is looking for you.”
“To save me?”
“To kill you.”
“God.” She sobbed. “I thought he might marry me.”
“Prince Charming is less than charming.”
Sikandar and Cinderella are super lovely together, and they have a lot of time to bond — her a dragon, him a banished sorcerer. Their romance is sweet and didn’t feel rushed even though the book is quite short. Tautly paced, it kept everything moving along nicely — plus throw in some big displays of magic and running for your life and mysterious backstories unrevealed, and you have a unique retelling that’s hard to put down.
Dragon by Midnight is a truly fractured fairy tale that’s both magical and endearing, with the perfect twist on the old Cinderella tale!
Don’t forget to enter the giveaway on my instagram and also see my Tiktok below! Thanks to MTMC Tours for having me.
Title: Dragon By Midnight
Author: Karen Kincy
Publication Date: September, 2021
Genres: YA Fantasy Romance
Purchase a copy: Amazon | Book Depository | Indiebound | Blackwell’s
Add on Goodreads
When the clock strikes midnight, Cinderella turns into a dragon.
Her dream twisted into a nightmare, she flees from the ball into the wilderness. Cinderella’s only hope? Sikandar, a sorcerer banished from a faraway land, who promises to break the dragon curse. Even at her most beastly, he finds beauty within her. But he’s hiding his own dark past, and saving Cinderella might be his last chance of redemption.
Together, Cinderella and Sikandar must untangle dangerous secrets and deadly magic before happily ever after is forever out of reach.
Dragon by Midnight features sweet romance, twists on fairytales, an obsession with breakfast, and a cinnamon roll hero who’s too good to be bad.
@cgdrews dragon by midnight by @karenkincy is out now!! Thanks MTMCtours for the copy 🐉 #booktok #bookish #bookshelf #yabooks #dragonbymidnight #books #yafantasyrecs #bookstan ♬ som original – Lay ❤️
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Karen Kincy writes books when she isn’t writing code. She has a BA in Linguistics and Literature from The Evergreen State College, and an MS in Computational Linguistics from the University of Washington.
Website | Instagram | Twitter | Goodreads
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