This Sleeping Beauty retelling incorporated its fairytale tropes and conventions in a totally original and unexpected story and world that will appeal to readers of Malinda Lo or Audrey Coulthurst.

An extremely compelling telling of the Sleeping Beauty story. It was full of unexpected events and lots of twisted consequences.

I was drawn to this as it is a modern day telling of the fairytale of “Sleeping Beauty’ from the POV of the ‘other side’! I assume is the evil witch Maleficent!!

Oh I am so sad but I just did not love this. The reviews are great so there is no doubt this story has found the right audience
. My rating⭐⭐..5 rounded up

Want to thank NetGalley and Random House Publishing group - Ballantine for this early release granted to me in exchange for an honest professional review. Opinions expressed in this review are my own.
Publishing Release Date scheduled for April 13, 2021

This was such a great retelling! The blurred lines between good and evil alone were absolutely perfect add that to the discussion of capitalism and this book was so close to perfect. There were so many great things about this story I can't name them all. I just wanted to say that I adored this book!

Thank you net galley for sending me this arc!

I had a hard time getting into this book at first. Once I did I really enjoyed it as I’m a huge fan of any retelling of fairy tales. I thought there was a lot of background information that was given however I really liked that aspect of this book. Overall I did enjoy this book once I got past the first few chapters. Anyone who loves fairy tales and fantasy books will enjoy this one!

I really wanted to like this book, but it just didn't catch my interest enough. The world building was great, but the characters were mostly one note and the story was slow in too many spots. Some of the plot points were too obvious, and then all of a sudden when there was some real action the book ended. I wish the central characters' relationship had been better fleshed out so that the stakes felt higher.

I'm not a huge fan of fairytale retellings, but was intrigued by the representation and framing of this one, so decided to give it a try. IF you enjoy fairytale retellings, you will probably like this book. I didn't love or hate the book and personally thought it was okay, but could see the potential it has for the right audience. I think some of my students are going to LOVE this book and will be working to add it into our classroom library next year.

Yet another retelling of Sleeping beauty? Boring right? NO! This tale is unlike the normal fairy tales and much more interesting than the usual retellings. Princess Aurora is beautiful and kind as she should be but is haunted by a curse. In an effort to find the right handsome man to save her the Queen has forced Aurora to kiss hundreds of strangers since she was a small child. The curse is hereditary and Aurora's older sisters have already died. With less than a year to go before she too will die Aurora enlists the help of a so called evil sorceress. Can a solution be found in time? Enjoy the rich details of the land and its people while you find out.

I’ve mentioned in previous reviews that I love a good villain origin story, and this is certainly that. It explores the evolution of the tormented becoming the tormentor as the line between “good” and “evil” blurs into non-existence. The author was very clever in how she twisted various elements of Sleeping Beauty adaptations into her story, and by the end, you could fully empathize with Alyce and her descent into darkness. This is a character who really has nothing left to lose, and it is tragic to watch her become the monster that everyone says she is. It really makes you reflect on the power of love, and how it has the capability to both redeem and destroy. It’s frightening to think that one choice can determine which.

My only real criticism of this book is that although the author did a fantastic job building Alyce’s character, Aurora’s character felt a bit flat. I would have liked to see more character development for her because I think it would have added more dimension to her relationship with Alyce.

Looks like we're in a wlw fairytale retelling sort of year, first with Cinderella is Dead and now with Malice! Malice follows Alyce, the Dark Grace who can brew elixirs to cause others suffering, and this makes her reviled amongst her peers. She is half-Vila, which means that she is part of a race of evil Fae who were purged in the last Fae war. To make matters worse, generations ago, a Vila sorceress cursed the royal line such that every princess would die upon her 21st birthday, unless she can receive true love's kiss, and Crown Princess Aurora has less than a year before she will perish.

But alas, this is a wlw book, so take a wild guess who will be bestowing True Love's Kiss upon her.

I really wanted to like this book, and I did, but not as much as I'd hoped.

First things first, the romance. The romance between Alyce and Aurora is cute, if a little par for the course. They find solace in each other, each oppressed by the societal structures that would deny them freedom. Aurora is routinely Graced to be picture-perfect, to the point where she has no idea what she truly looks like, and forced to kiss strangers in order to find True Love's Kiss. Together they dream of a brighter future where Aurora lives to be Queen, with Alyce by her side. Aurora is a little too "good" for my taste, but I suppose that's because the story is being told from Alyce's perspective.

The worldbuilding is also quite interesting, with fantastical imagery and detailed lore. The institution of the Graces is built on the exploitation of women who are then discarded when they have nothing left to give. The lineage of the Briar Queens has been slowly eradicated by political in-fighting and foreign princes who want a slice of power. Princesses are denied the ability to be with who they want for the sake of producing royal children, which could even lead to their deaths if their True Love is not a politically advantageous enough match. These were all well-thought-out and kept me interested even in some of the side characters like Rose.

Still, this book was painfully slow at the beginning and felt rather juvenile for the longest time. With a villain origin story, there are usually societal pressures and systems of oppression that turn the protagonist into their final form, but in this book, all of the evils of society are such caricatures. You have the other Graces who bully her for being "evil," common people who shun her, and sneaky men who want to use her power for their own gains. I never got that sense of cold dread at a world that would always seek to keep her caged unless she breaks the system, I saw a parody of exaggeratedly awful people. Micro-aggressions or even just apathy to her suffering would have been more realistic, in my opinion. They were sort of there in the form of the mistress of Lavender House, admittedly, but that wasn't enough to balance out the rest.

For comparison, I'd refer to Forest of a Thousand Lanterns by Julie C. Dao (another fairytale villain origin story!), where Xifeng's willing to do whatever it takes to survive in a world where beauty is the only currency that women have to barter for power with. The fact that she has a ruthless ambition tempered by her love for her childhood sweetheart creates an interesting back-and-forth before she inevitably picks her side at the end of the 2nd act. This tipping point for Alyce doesn't come until too late, near the very end of the story, and rather than feeling like this was the natural direction for the story, I was just knocked off-balance and a little confused based on the lead-up to this point. Certainly, there were points when Alyce was petty and hurt people who were mean to her, and Hilde often warned her not to become the monster that everyone feared she was, but that wasn't enough for me personally.

The story didn't really lead up to the ending. While it was dramatic and epic, I got the sense that the author had an idea for a starting point and an ending point, and didn't adjust the ending after executing the main body of the work. I also didn't like how little agency Alyce had in the end, not when her final decisions seemed to be more motivated by the whims of other people.

Ultimately, I loved the idea behind this, but the execution fell flat for me when it came to the character journeys. I always appreciate ventures into wlw fantasy, but I always feel like they're never actually willing to allow their ladies to be "bad" and kind of waffle about.

I received a digital ARC of this novel through NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.
Heather Walter took a classic fairy tale, which has been adapted many times over the years, and made the tale feel fresh and new with her world-building. The well-established lore of the story allowed readers to easily connect with the characters of the story and their plights. The Graces and their origins felt very natural for the setting and not crammed into the Sleeping Beauty style story.
The novel was an enjoyable read that I couldn’t tear myself away from, leading me to finish my first read through in a night. The ending left me wanting more and hoping for a second book following Alyce and Aurora. Whether or not there is a continuation to this story, I look forward to adding a physical copy of the novel to my library when it releases on April 13th, 2021!

I was given a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This author often mixes creepy, paranormal, murder, suspense
and adult situations.

This book continues the tradition with a twisted retelling of Sleeping Beauty.

The road to romance, justice, understanding is filled with unexpected turns in the plot. Who is the evil, cunning monster - the princess or the witch?

Get ready to reimagine one of your favorite fairy tales and leave the light on if you read at night.

After finishing this book my first thoughts were.... what? where is the rest? I need more, right now! I had to go onto goodreads and make sure that we would be getting another book and was so happy to find out that there will be.
I love retellings and I loved getting this one from the "villians" point of view.
Alyce sees herself the way others treat her. Most of her "sisters" the other graces treat Alyce like she is a monster, and the only thing she is good for is cursing others. Then she meets Princess Aurora, she likes that Alyce isn't like the others. She is uniqe in the best of ways. As they begin to spend more and more time together trying to free Aurora from the curse that will see her dead in a year if she doesn't find her true love, Alyce finds herself with growing feelings for the princess.
I really liked that we didn't get insta love between them. we go to see the love between them growing.
I also loved the world building, and how Alyce didn't just discover she was different and all of a sudden master her new powers. We see her struggling to learn what she is capible of, and how she is using what she learns. I really enjoyed the whole book, but my favorite part came when Alyce finally let herself go, and show everyone what she has been hiding. I think this is definitely going to go onto my list of favorite retellings.
I really can't wait for the next book.
Thank you to the publisher for granting my wish to read this book.

I'm torn between 3 and 4 stars. There so much to love about this book, but there's also a few things that I did not like.

First off, I loved how this book gave Princess Aurora a personality! In the Disney-fied version of Sleeping Beauty, the sleeping princess has about 18 minutes of screen time. She's a little more than an idealized plot device in the movie. In this story, Aurora is an idealized princess, but her character does not end there. She has moments of spunk, and I kind of wanted more page time with her. Alyce was a welcome surprise. I really liked her as a MC, and I kept reading to see if she would find her place (& get the princess).

The Grace system was also neat. I thought it was a cool way to tie in the "fairy godmother" characters into this new fantasy world, and this was one of many allusions to the original fairytale! I really enjoyed seeing if I could catch the Sleeping Beauty tie-ins. There's also some political intrigue and whatnot that added to the plot.

The main thing that I did not like about this book (without getting too spoilery) was I thought (due to the blurb and the appearance of being a stand alone) that it would be more of a retelling than origin story. And unfortunately, this was enough to diminish my enjoyment of this novel.

All in all, this was a nice take on the sleeping beauty story. The romance between Alyce and Aurora was nice, and the magic system was neat! However, I didn't love it as much as I wanted to, but I'm sure that many other readers looking for LGBTQ+ takes on classic fairytales will.

I would love to thank NetGalley and publisher, Random House, for allowing me to read an eARC! I really appreciated the opportunity!

Four stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐ for shocking the heck out of me!

Malice is a sapphic fairytale retelling, somewhere in the realm between Maleficent/Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella from the perspective of the perceived "villain" and while I'm not so into re-tellings, I'm always here for a good grey main character.

The worldbuilding here was very, very entrenched in the fairytales a lot of us know and love, but with a twist. Here, the society is built around the Graces: Beings born with magical gifts of beauty, charm, and wisdom, who sell their spells for a price as the kingdom itself protects the border between the human and the fae land. Alyce is not a Grace, however, she is a Vila. The remnant of a dark race of beings who only worked in dark and bitter magic. Though she lives among the Graces and works alongside them, she is shunned and ostracized. There is a longing in Alyce that she can hardly contain: She has no idea who her parents were, why she survived when the rest of her race did not, and truly, she doesn't even know the extent of her own power. A series of events begins to unfold when the Graces and Alyce are invited to the palace for the princess Aurora's birthday.

I was surprised and relieved at the careful balance between the frill of the fantastical and how well thought-out the world was. This is very much a fairytale, but there was enough depth to keep me intrigued. Aurora and Alyce did not fall in love instantly (another fairytale faux pas that always ails me). No, instead they develop a friendship first and the slow-burn romance is both satisfying and enjoyable to follow. I appreciated how the story focused on Alyce finding her power, and herself.

Some plot points did not get as well fleshed out as I would like, but as I've heard there will be a sequel, I'll reserve my judgement until then and can forgive the sort of abrupt, cliff-hanger ending. I truly enjoyed this book all around and was pleasantly surprised to find out just how much. Aurora and Alyce both were very likable and very sweet. If you're here for twisty sapphic fairytales, this one is definitely for you!

Malice will hit the shelves 13 April 2021!

My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for gracing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The elevator pitch given to me for Malice was "lesbian retelling of Sleeping Beauty." The reality is that it is more of a lesbian prequel to Sleeping Beauty that ends when Aurora is sent to sleep. This story is set in a world with graces. Girls born with golden eyes who can craft elixirs from their golden blood. The elixirs can make you more beautiful, or wiser, or dancer better. However the main character Alyce is a dark grace. The only one ever known to exist. Her elixirs are curses that cause warts or make people clumsy. She is forced to work as a grace by the laws of the land but she is shunned and people fear her. Upon meeting the princess Aurora Alyce feels a connection but the royal family is cursed to die on their 21st birthday unless they are kissed by their true love before then and Aurora just turned 21. The two start working together to try and save the princess and free her from her curse.

I enjoy fairy tale re-tellings and thought the LGBTQ+ addition to the story was great. Especially since it went beyond the main characters and it was pointed out that other LGBTQ+ couples existed and were accepted in this world. I felt the world building was great and there was clearly a lot of thought put into the different areas, and people of the world. The characters that Alyce interacted with all had full and interesting backgrounds and felt like complete people. The build up between Alyce and Aurora was well done. However. I feel the pacing was a bit off and times the story dragged a bit especially towards the end. And then the very end felt rushed and sudden. A bit less exposition about the king and bit more of a slow ramp up in the change in Alyce would have created a smoother and less sudden ending I believe. But this is a rather minor critique in a story that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Overall Malice is an enjoyable book and one I was excited to read and will enjoy recommending when it is released. It is an impressive debut novel and I look forward to seeing what else Heather Walter will publish in the future. It had strong Feminist and LGBTQ+ themes that I hope to see continued in her future writing.

Merryweather who? Give me Alyce over a storybook stereotypical fairy any day!

Malice is a dark fantasy retelling of the story of Sleeping Beauty, with more of a feminist perspective. It features a beautiful female/female romance, where you turn into one of those crowd members who start chanting “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”. I loved how it focused more on the “villain” rather than the princess in the story. The main character is by no means powerless, but she has been made to feel helpless by those around her. This feeling of helplessness is what turns her into a villain.

Our main character is Alyce, the Dark Grace of the Realm. No one wants to be associated with her, yet at the same time, they require her services whenever they want to curse their enemies. Alyce goes on a journey of character development throughout the course of the story, which is fun to see. She is clearly portrayed as the bad guy or the villain in this story, but it was refreshing to get a perspective of what goes on in the villain’s head.

Heather Walter creates an immersive world for readers to jump into. I don’t think I’ve read a book with this level of world-building in a while. The settings were all very unique. I feel that the system in the book with the Graces and the Vila was a unique idea as well. The Graces in this novel each have their individual specialties (some specialize in beauty, others in cursing one’s enemies….). Definitely better than the forgettable fairies you see in the original Sleeping Beauty movie.

Overall, a captivating reimagination of the Briar Rose/Sleeping Beauty story. I really hope that this has a sequel, as I can't wait to see what happens next.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This felt exactly how I wanted it to feel: like I was reading a fairy-tale.

I am a sucker for an anti-hero or anti-heroine, and the moment I heard of 'Malice' being told from the "evil fairy" POV, I knew I needed it - and I was not disappointed. From the very first chapter, I was drawn into Alyce and her story. I was angry for her, the way the other Grace's and society treated her, and I was curious about why she was so different. Having it be Sapphic was just the icing on the cake. I honestly cannot wait for this book to be released so I can have a physical copy on my shelf (and to force into the hands of my friends demanding they read it).

I can't believe this is the authors debut, but I am officially a fan. I can't wait to see what she comes up with next.

This was a fun, dark fairytale! I really enjoyed the plot line and the characters!!
And the cover is absolutely stunning!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own

Malice by Heather Walter

Not really spoilers, but read at your own risk.

You might like this book if you're a fan of Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella with a little bit of GOT thrown in at the end.

I was attracted to this book because of the cover, but I didn't realize this was a retelling of Sleeping Beauty when I requested it from Netgalley. The book follows the story of Alyce, "the Dark Grace," who is this version's Malificient. She grew up amongst the other Graces that had special abilities to make humans beautiful, smarter, more artistic, etc. (think, the good fairies). All Alyce could do is make curses, such as ugly potions, which earned her the nickname Malyce. Then the royal family is introduced to include Aurora. I personally feel like maybe the princess's name should be changed but I guess that was my first clue that this was a version of Sleeping Beauty. Throw in some Fae influence and some LGBTQ romance and you have yourself a new story.

I actually enjoyed reading the majority of this book. It was an interesting twist to the classic, but I wasn't a big fan of the ending. It was really too similar to GOT for my liking. I know the cartoon version of Sleeping Beauty has a dragon but this was next level. Overall, I gave it a 4. I probably would've given it a 5 with a different ending.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC of this book!