THE FIRE ROSE
This is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, moved to 19th century San Francisco. Recently orphaned Rose Hawkins finds herself destitute, with her knowledge of archaic languages her only asset. Surprisingly enough, an offer comes her way for a governess with her skills from a mysterious rich railroad baron. Accepting this strange offer, she goes to his San Francisco mansion...only to find that there are no children to teach and that a number of other odd things are going on.
THE FIREBIRD
This is a retelling of the Grimm's fairy tale, set in Russia long ago and pervaded with colorful beasts from Russian folklore. Ilya, one among many of the Tsar's sons, is practically exiled from his kingdom by his treacherous brothers. He wanders into the enchanted gardens of the Katschei (sp?) and promptly falls in love with one of the beautiful maidens kept captive there. But freeing the maidens is not an easy matter, requiring the aid of various animals, including a fox, bird and a firebird. Pleasant fairy tale-- I particularly liked the ending, which I am not going to give away at this point.
THE BLACK SWAN
This is, predictably enough, a retelling of the black swan ballet. The characters are fleshed out a bit more, and the sorcerer's daughter, Odile, in particular becomes a likable person. However, characterization is decidedly sketchy for everyone else, and Odette just remains a pretty face throughout. Not as enjoyable as the earlier two, but full of manners and costumes, which is to say, moderately entertaining. THE SERPENT'S SHADOW
Set in the early 1900s, like The Fire Rose, and dealing with the same system of magic. I really wanted to like this one, I really did-- but the characters just seemed kind of flat, the romance even flatter. The London setting was fascinating and should have been explored more thoroughly, as was San Francisco in The Fire Rose. It also suffers from a rather poor conclusion, which is not comparable to the one in The Fire Rose.
