All her life, Falon’s grandfather told her the age-old tale of ‘The Gingerbread Man’. Even as a teenager, she’d fallen asleep to his favorite bedtime story, a special tradition she knew she’d never outgrow. However, when he makes a dying wish, asking her to visit a secret underground world of magic to rescue the best friend he left behind fifty years ago, the tale begins to come to life.
Setting out with her self-obsessed cousin and a cure for the magicked man with skin like gingerbread, she finds herself tangled within an adventure nothing like the story her grandfather always told.
Once having found the long lost man of her grandfather’s youth, her only hope of ever returning home, or even surviving his world, lies in the talons of a deadly hybrid she scarcely trusts. Together they must face the animals taken from the children’s tale and magicked into monsters, a man who can move mountains who is bent on killing them all, and a labyrinth rumored to have never allowed a survivor.
Hidden within the Evanish Mountains, there is a crevice that leads to an unknown world deep within our earth, where magic bleeds through the ground, transforming whatever it touches.
Over time, a great many wanderers have fallen into the enormous underground world, drawn in by its magic and turned into beings who look like they could have been made from gingerbread. The only way to escape is to face a maze filled with monsters and peril nearly impossible to survive.
Men have become lost until time consumed them. Others were destroyed and eaten by horses, by pigs, by oxen, or by whatever creature was unlucky enough to be touched by the magic of this underworld. It affects every sort of animal differently, but all are transfixed by the maze to crave the taste of the magicked man. The wind, as prey cuts through it, seems to chant:
“Run, run as fast as you can.
The moment you stop, you’re a dead man.”
None are worse than the vixens, however, a cache of female foxes with unparalleled speed and teeth that can cut through anything like butter.
Only a few have ever made it past them. The rare escapee is where the age-old tale of “The Gingerbread Man” originated, told differently from mouth to mouth. Not to mention that each “gingerbread man’s” tale is different.
Review
I’m always up for a creative take on fairy tales, and this grabbed my interest. The gingerbread angle was very cool. I’m not sure I fully understood all the mechanics of the world, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. It felt like there could be a book/series set primarily in the gingerbread world to flesh out all the cool things there. Not to mention the dangerous ones—yikes.
The character growth was great, and I even felt a little bad for the villains. The romance seemed a bit fast, and the logistics struck me as a bit odd. I never judge a couple. You love who you love, and no one knows that better than me. Just I felt like I missed something about the romantic interest’s background. Not a dealbreaker by any means.
Long story short, I recommend this to fans of YA fantasy, fairy tales, and neat fantasy worlds. Definitely worth a read.
April Marcom works as a Pre-K teacher’s assistant, but her true passion is writing. When she’s not teaching or creating stories, she’s enjoying the country life with her car-obsessed husband and three fabulous children. She also enjoys rainy days, traveling, and her very rowdy dogs. April grew up a southern bell in Mississippi, but is now a proud Oklahoman. Find her online at http://www.5princebooks.com/aprilmarcom.html.
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All the opinions expressed in this review are my own. Read the full disclosure here.