The Princess and the Hound by Mette Ivie Harrison

Title: The Princess and the Hound (Princess #1)

Author: Mette Ivie Harrison

Publisher: HarperTeen 2007

Genre: Fairy Tales

Pages: 410

Rating:  4 /5 stars

Reading Challenges: Telling Tales; Fall into Reading

How I Got It: Library Loan

He is a prince and heir to a kingdom threatened on all sides, possessor of the forbidden animal magic.

She is a princess from a rival kingdom, the daughter her father never wanted, isolated from all except her hound.

In this lush and beautifully written fairy-tale romance, a prince, a princess, and two kingdoms are joined in the aftermath of a war. Proud, stubborn, and bound to marry for duty, George and Beatrice will steal your heart—but will they fall in love?

I actually grabbed the second book in this series, but stopped before reading it.  I went back to the library to grab the first one in the series.  A retelling of Beauty and the Beast.  I wasn’t expecting that, but was pleasantly surprised.  The book is told mostly from the side of George.  it took me many pages before I figured out that this was a Beauty and the Beast retelling.  I was thrown by the concept of animal magic and the gender role switch.  After settling into the idea, I started to really like the story.  I loved George’s struggle between who he is and who he thinks he should be.  It was a nice internal struggle.  I wish that we could have gotten to know Beatrice/Marit better.  It seems that George falls in love with her, but I couldn’t pinpoint why.  For the ambiguous love, I dropped the book a star.  I just had too many questions at the end of it.  Maybe the second book will answer some of those for me.

Princess

1. The Princess and the Hound
2. The Princess and the Bear
3. The Princess and the Snowbird
4. The Princess and the Horse