Spinning Starlight by R.C. Lewis

Wildcard #1 ~ “A retelling.”

spinningstarlight

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

My opinion in three sentences:

It’s always refreshing to see a retelling of a less well-known fairytale, and I’ll admit I had high expectation for this given how much enjoyed Lewis’ other retelling Stitching Snow previously. The vague nature of the world-building, however, meant that many of the fantasy elements translated rather weakly and made it challenging to envisage much of the setting. I also thought that whilst the use of flashbacks was clever to help flesh out the absent characters, several of these seemed to lack any real purpose other than padding out the book further.

(Without spoiling anything) the best bit:

A retelling of niche fairytale The Wild Swans set in outer space – need I say more? (Just on the off-chance that the answer to that rhetorical question is “yes”, this is not only an adaptation of something you won’t already had read a hundred times, but an incredibly imaginative one at that.)

A warning for the book:

With an intriguing and imaginative take on a retelling, this book had a lot of potential. However, the world-building is insufficient to really do it justice, so whilst the plot is engaging and interesting, it’s not all that easy to visualise (either in terms of setting or concept).

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