The Princess and the Horse by Mette Ivie Harrison

The Princess and the Horse by Mette Ivie Harrison

Fierce has been an outcast in her pack ever since her mother left to be a human. As a hound she is fearless and one of the best hunters in her pack, and though she is not treated well by the others in the pack she loves the forest and her life as a hound. Then she is changed into a human by a princess looking for her precious horse. The wild magic that this princess wields so recklessly has endangered the balance of the world. Fissures form in the ground and from them come white worms that eat the life around them and then imitate it to cause destruction.

Fierce arrives at the nearest human residence to somehow make a life among humans. There she discovers Red, the boy who cares for the hounds. He wishes to learn the language of the hounds, and Fierce finds it comforting to spend time with the other hounds. As they form an acquaintance a woman comes to ask the Lord of the manor for help when the wandering princess turns her husband and daughter into animals. The Lord turns his back on her plea, but Fierce knows that this princess must be stopped and so she and Red go after her.

Convincing a spoiled princess to change her behavior is quite a challenge, as well as facing the worm creatures that are now traveling the forest and harming people. They must return them from the fissures they came from before they alter the world permanently, but such a task requires great cost from those that fight the substance. 

I am really loving the fact that authors are now independently putting up books in series that their publishers dropped, because it means I got to read another Princess/Hound book by Mette Harrison. The price recently went down to 99 cents, which is a total steal! I was so excited when the book went down to that price and snatched it up immediately. In fact, it is still at that price right now. If you are interested in the book at all you should consider picking it up while the price is still low.

I always find something that annoys me in these books, yet I always keep coming back to them because I really do love the voice of the series. This book also has that wonderful fairy tale feeling, and yet still feels substantive. The author often combines vivid emotions and profound views of human nature, but does it in a way  that comes naturally from the world and characters. It also has the interesting romance story that managed to feel the same, but still ended up having a twist that surprised me. For some reason I find the human changed into an animal or vice versa to be a very interesting romance trope in the series. The author managed to find so much tension and conflict in how such a dramatic change affects the characters and how that plays out in the romance plot line.

My complaint is that the world felt a little bit fuzzy to me. Some of the scenes felt odd in that I felt like the setting faded. A entire mob came into the forest to confront the Princess and the her entourage, but I wasn’t exactly sure how they all fit in between the trees enough to have the confrontation the author described. There were several other examples of that where I felt the author was so focused on telling the story she forgot the little background details that makes a story feel sharp and clear.

Despite that I still really enjoyed the book and really enjoyed the story and the characters. Totally worth reading if you are a fairy tale fiction fan.

Find out more about this series at Mette Ivie Harrison's Website.