Review
Story = 3 stars, Illustrations = 5 stars.
This is the story of an only child so over indulged by her parents that she grows up with little compassion for her fellow creatures. So when she catches a fish who warns her that killing and eating him could have bad consequences she laughs at him and completely disregards his advice. Soon she finds herself transformed into a fish swimming among strange sea folk. The spell cannot be broken until she performs a difficult task for the sea queen – retrieve her crown from a malevolent giant.
I like the premise of this story, but there were elements that were really corny and even a little disturbing (not in a good way). Additionally, I felt there were some loose ends left unresolved. I can’t say how much of these issues are the responsibility of Heyer or the original tale (a Spanish folk tale taken from Andrew Lang’s version in The Orange Fairy Book). I’m just not that wild about Heyer’s writing style sometimes, and I do feel she could have done more to ‘sell’ this story to a modern audience. But does any of this even matter when you take into account Heyer’s out of this world illustrations? I still keep coming back for more and would continue to buy her books based solely on her artistic abilities. And this one is certainly superior to her original tale The Forbidden Door. Plus I have to give her props for reviving less familiar tales like this one and the one featured in The Weaving of a Dream.
This is the story of an only child so over indulged by her parents that she grows up with little compassion for her fellow creatures. So when she catches a fish who warns her that killing and eating him could have bad consequences she laughs at him and completely disregards his advice. Soon she finds herself transformed into a fish swimming among strange sea folk. The spell cannot be broken until she performs a difficult task for the sea queen – retrieve her crown from a malevolent giant.
I like the premise of this story, but there were elements that were really corny and even a little disturbing (not in a good way). Additionally, I felt there were some loose ends left unresolved. I can’t say how much of these issues are the responsibility of Heyer or the original tale (a Spanish folk tale taken from Andrew Lang’s version in The Orange Fairy Book). I’m just not that wild about Heyer’s writing style sometimes, and I do feel she could have done more to ‘sell’ this story to a modern audience. But does any of this even matter when you take into account Heyer’s out of this world illustrations? I still keep coming back for more and would continue to buy her books based solely on her artistic abilities. And this one is certainly superior to her original tale The Forbidden Door. Plus I have to give her props for reviving less familiar tales like this one and the one featured in The Weaving of a Dream.
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