If nothing else, I have accomplished this

[zoiey_may]

Before I get sucked into the internet for the summer, I sat myself down and and read Mercedes Lackey's "Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms" series. Like her "Elemental Masters" series, they're reimaginings of fairytales, but set in a fantasy world instead of Edwardian London. I liked them okay, but even being printed by a romance publisher, the sex scenes in 'The Fairy Godmother' and 'Fortune's Fool' kinda took me by surprise and didn't really seem to belong. I mean, they didn't come out of nowhere, but they didn't really affect or advance the plot. And they are horribly full of purple prose.

'One Good Knight' and 'The Snow Queen' didn't have this, but 'The Snow Queen' seemed a little disjointed and the romantic couples weren't developed at all. The young man whose kidnapping drives the plot is pursued by his sweetheart, and then when they are reunited at the end they aren't paid any more mind. His mother apparently falls in love with his master on the journey to find him, but we don't see any mention of it until the very end. And the Snow Queen herself is also suddenly attracted to the other man on the quest in the last pages.

Now 'One Good Knight' I really liked. I guessed all of the plot-twists, but they were done well, and the romance was more believable and also done well.