I received an ARC of Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower from Subterranean Press in exchange for an honest review.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

A princess is locked in a tower. The tower is guarded by a dragon. A prince slays the dragon and rescues—no, wait, that’s wrong. The dragon crunches up the prince. Another prince comes; the dragon crunches him up too. (The unidentified first-person narrator of Princess Floralina and the Forty-Flight Tower always uses that particular phrase, “crunched up,” which is at once both discomfortingly visceral and charmingly euphemistic.) Twenty-four princes get crunched up, and Floralinda is still stuck in the tower, each of the thirty-nine flights below her occupied by a monster—and the witch who set it all up didn’t provide insulation. “Winter is coming,” as the Starks say, but it won’t take thousands of pages to arrive in the world of Tamsyn Muir.

Princess Floralinda will have to save herself.

There are a lot of these stories on bookshelves these days, mythology and fairy tales turned subversive and feminist. Most authors are content to gender-swap. Women are strong and brave and have agency, and that’s all great. But it’s also boring. Strong female characters don’t (necessarily) make for strong female characters; give me women who are complex and dynamic and complicated; give me women who change and develop; give me women who are heroes, and give me women who make the most monstrous men look like garden-variety pests. I asked…

And on the twelfth day of Christmas, Tamsyn Muir gave to me: Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower. (Christmas is actually relevant to the plot of this book; it’s not beyond me, but please be assured that I’m not pulling in random references just because I feel like it.)

This novella rocks. Princess Floralinda is everything I described above and then some, and the only other major character, a genderless fairy named Cobweb who reluctantly helps her defeat the monsters and descend the tower, is her perfect complement: sometimes they are friends and more often they are enemies literally trapped together by circumstance, but the sparks of great storytelling fly in every scene they share. Readers of Muir’s debut Gideon the Ninth will have a hard time not imagining Cobweb and Floralinda as the result of some mad experiment in which Gideon and Harrow wandered into a different genre, which may be a pro or a con depending on how badly you’re craving more of that relationship. (Emotionally, I love that dynamic and didn’t mind the similarities; intellectually, I would have preferred Muir branch out a bit more.)

Muir’s prose is, expectedly, both precise and playful. The syntactical dream-logic and horrifying humor of fairy tales pairs perfectly with her eye for technical detail, creating a world which feels simultaneously absurd and textured with the complex systems of everything from chemistry to economics. Witches and fairies and dragons abound, but wounds get infected, weapons are cleverly crafted from everyday items, and the encroaching cold of winter is as real a threat as the giant spider (the size of three beds) on the thirty-eighth floor of the tower. I didn’t notice any non-diegetic jokes, but Muir still manages some true laugh-out-loud moments, and the narrator flavors dramatic irony throughout by bending and compressing the chronology of the story.

Like Gideon the Ninth (and its mind-melting sequel, Harrow the Ninth, which came out only a few months prior to Floralinda), this is a book soaked through with pain, abuse, and trauma. If you read the Three Crows Magazine interview with Tamsyn Muir that was published in February 2020, you will find many echoes of the personal experiences she unpacked in that piece also in these pages. I prefer not to apply autobiographical readings to fiction, so I won’t say any more about that. But those who have had similar experiences will identify deeply, as I did, with Cobweb and Floralinda. This book might be even angrier than Gideon, but it is also more hopeful: it is fierce and transformative, bloody and funny and powerful. On second thought, “hopeful” isn’t the right word. That word isn’t interesting enough to describe how this book made me feel. You know when you’re physically or emotionally raw and every sensation is turned up to eleven? It’s not that feeling, but the feeling of falling in love with that feeling.

This is a Tamsyn Muir book. If you loved Gideon the Ninth, you’ll love this. If you didn’t love Gideon the Ninth, you won’t love this, and I don’t know how to help you. If you haven’t read Gideon the Ninth, Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower is the perfect place to start with Muir: it hits many of Gideon’s beats, but the shorter length of Floralinda means it hits them faster and harder. I always imagine Tamsyn cackling while she writes. I don’t know if she does, although that would be absolutely delightful, but I do know that I always finish her books grinning and hungry for more. Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower is no exception.

My thanks to NetGalley for making an eARC copy of this book available to me.

A very entertaining read, this short novel is about a princess who is held captive by a witch and (when the requisite princes fail to retrieve her) must end up rescuing herself. Lots of laugh out loud moments, lots of making fun of many fairy tales and fantasy tropes.

Someone said this was like a Gail Carson Levine novel but darker, and I think I disagree. GCL has a lot more character development and growth in her books. Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower reads a lot like a classic, traditional fairy tale, but it also rather satirical of classic fairy tales and plays on the classic archetypes and tropes in fairy tales. For example, Princess Floralinda is a princess, which means her tears have healing powers and she doesn't have a lot going on in the brain department. A witch imprisons her in a forty-flight tower, with a different kind of monster guarding each level, as bait for princes (because witches are the princes' only natural predator, obviously). The witch really doesn't put a lot of thought into the comfort of the princesses she imprisons (she's just not that type of witch) and as winter sets in it becomes apparent that this is really more of a three-season sort of tower...

I LOVE the ending (which I won't expand upon because I don't want to spoil it for you!) Read this if you want a bit of a dark, satirical twist on a classic fairytale.

What's an imprisoned princess to do when all of her potential rescuers have been eaten by a dragon?

This fairytale flips the princess needs rescuing trope on its head with Tamsyn Muir's usual pointed wit and sarcastic charm. Along the way, she delves into some seriously old school Brothers Grimm fairytale gore. And there's the questioning of gender, traditional roles, and what that means.

A witch kidnaps Floralinda and installs her at the top of a 40 story high tower. Each floor is guarded by something awful starting with a diamond-encrusted dragon. Sadly for Floralinda, no prince makes it by the dragon.

Floralinda receives unexpected and perhaps unwanted help in the form of Cobweb, a bottom of the garden fairy with a penchant for chemistry and sly sarcasm. If you enjoyed the sullen sarcasm of Gideon the Ninth, then Cobweb is definitely the character for you.

Imagine Patricia Wrede's Dealing With Dragons but with more sarcasm and a bit of slasher film.

Thank you Netgalley and Subterranean Press for the ARC.

I LOVED Gideon the Ninth, and I have Harrow waiting for when my brain is up to the task of reading it, so obviously I jumped when this gem appeared on NetGalley. It had been on my list for a while, and I was anxiously waiting to be able to read it. Tamsyn Muir has a masterfully sarcastic subversive writing style and I can't get enough.

On to the story. I wasn't as convinced at first, as Floralinda was rather dull (typical princess, you know, of the fainting at every difficulty variety). Then Cobweb showed up - a bottom-0f-the-garden fairy / chemist who is annoyed at all required fairy tasks and generally unapologetically awful. Floralinda was puzzled at Cobweb's disdain of gender, and so just assigned her a gender (girl) instead of trying to wrap her head around it. Like I said, very steroetypically princessy. Cobweb pretty much just rolled her eyes and said whatever I don't care.

The tower they were in was 40 flights tall and had a new monster at each successive level for the princes to fight.

Then, as winter approached and it became clear no princes were coming (that hadn't already been eaten by the diamond encrusted dragon on the first level, because of courses), she started thinking about how she might get out by going down.

Thanks to Cobweb's ingenuity and exasperation, and rather a lot of dumb luck, at least at first, they begin to make their way down the tower. As I've come to expect from Tamsyn Muir, it was rather bloody and gory, and the monsters were intriguing and the fight scenes well-written.

Floralinda grows as she makes her way down, and I actually rather loved the ending twist. Cobweb grew on me, and I heartily enjoyed Floralinda & Cobweb's changing relationship as the story progressed.

Highly recommend, especially if you're a fan of the princess tales from a few decades ago where the princesses aren't golden and empty-headed and actually want to do things for themselves, thanks.

*Thanks to NetGalley and Subterranean Press for providing an e-arc to review

I thoroughly enjoyed this subversion of the typical fairytale where the princess waits to be saved. I loved how Floralinda gradually gains agency and with that, the ability to choose to do awful things (what she did to Cobweb being the prime example) but how this balance of awfulness and determination makes her a much more compelling character than the placid princess she was before. Unsurprisingly, I also found this story hilarious. Tamsyn is a master at mixing genres and the outcome this time is like a comedy of manners set in a gory slasher fantasy land. The ending was pitch-perfect as well!

This satirical novella pokes fun at fairy tale tropes while exploring types of monsters and what happens to the damsels in distress when all of the princes get crunched up by a dragon.

Princess Floralinda is taken by a witch and told to wait at the top of her drafty tower until a prince has battled his way up to rescue her. Floralinda waits and waits, but as a scary dragon and the approach of winter put an end to princess-saving-season, desperation drives her to act herself and venture down the steps of the tower. In the following monstrous encounters, there is success, failure, a lot of dumb luck, and more and more things a princess should never have to do.

This is a super fun read. The pacing and humor were everything I’d wanted from How to Break an Evil Curse - witches kidnapping girls because that’s what witches do, ridiculous problem solving, and those sharp jabs where the absurd is treated as matter-of-fact. The beginning is a little slow, but the pacing doesn’t dull the humor, and once the action picks up it just keeps going, until it runs full stop into an ending which hits harder than expected from satire (or many “serious” stories, for that matter).

I'd have liked to see more of the dragon - it was mainly making trouble off page - but oh well, I'll get over it.

**Thanks to NetGalley and Subterranean Press for the ARC**

I honestly have no idea what I just read. It's unabashedly Tamsyn Muir but the characters are much less charming than the cast of The Locked Tomb trilogy, so it wasn't quite funny and indeed, Floralinda's princess disposition (aka limp lettuce syndrome) got rather old very quickly and by the time she toughened up, the story was over.

It takes a long time for the plot to take its first step and then proceeds with exceeding slowness before barreling towards the end in a way I didn't quite understand.

So while not the level of genius as Gideon the Ninth, Floralinda was still enjoyable if only because of the wry tone that Tamsyn is so masterful with.

Princess Floralinda has been imprisoned by a witch at the top of a 40-story tower, with a different monster on each of the 39 levels below her. The problem is that none of the princes who come to rescue her manage to make it past the dragon on level 1, and the once-steady stream of princes seems to have petered out, and winter is approaching… So it’s up to Floralinda to find her own way out of the tower. She has to fight, sneak, or trick her way past all 39 monsters, but that’s the sort of thing that princes are for, not princesses. Luckily she’s got the help of a somewhat unwilling bottom-of-the-garden fairy to advise her.

This novella is more or less what one would expect if a fairy tale were written by the author of Gideon the Ninth, because that’s literally exactly what it is. Go read it, it’s wonderful in every way.

This novella is a survivalist fairy tale satire. Basically imagine Patricia Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles, except evil.

Princess Floralinda has been kidnapped by a witch and placed on at the top of a 40-flight tower. The other 39 flights contain all sorts of monsters, from a group of goblins to a dragon with diamond-tipped scales, all waiting for a prince to kill on his quest to rescue her. Unfortunately for Floralinda, all the princes seem to keep dying on the first floor, and it doesn't look like she's getting out anytime soon. She's lonely and bored, and getting very tired of having only one dress to wear and only an unending diet of water, milk, bread, and oranges. And so, the princess gets curious about the goblins on the floor below her...

Muir pokes at fairy tale archetypes and gender essentialism, as the pampered princess takes her salvation into her own hands and finds herself doing things she never could have imagined she'd do. The result is a fun adventure with prose that feels like the beloved fantasy of my childhood, but with a heroine whose character arc bends in a rather dark and gory direction.

The story leans more into whimsy than critiques of gender roles, which means that it has less of an edge than I expected for a book that the publisher describes as "very dark," whose author has also written about goth lesbian space necromancers. Still, I found it a delightfully funny and strangely charming read that I couldn't put down. Fans of fractured fairy tales should love this one.

What a charming, entertaining tale. Tamsyn Muir brings her now-signature wry humor to a fairy tale that involved a waspish, caustic fairy and some truly fascinating tales. 'Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower' grabs you by the hand and drags you down flight after flight of head-turning stairs. Just when you think you know what you're getting, the story turns the tables and asks, "What does it take to change, and can you truly decide to become a different person?"
It's just enough of magic and wonder to bring back a stab of nostalgia for the stories we were told as children. But this adult fairy tale appeals to the grown-ups in us with the complex relationship between our protagonist Floralinda and the fairy who fell in through her tower window. They're not friends, and they may not like each other very much, but there is something to the way they try to fit each other into a story that makes their relationship uniquely compelling.
What does it mean to be a princess locked in a tower? Tamsyn Muir's questions asks something better - what does it mean to be locked in a tower, and who will you have to become to escape?

This book was kind of exactly what I thought it would be and I'm not even mad about it. It was a blast and I had so much fun reading it. You follow Floralinda, a princess who's been trapped at the top of the titular Forty-Flight Tower by a witch as she watches prince after prince fail to ascend all the flights in order to save her. She starts to take matters into her own hands with the help of a feisty fairy named Cobweb.

Obviously, this is a feminist take on the age old damsel-in-distress trope, and it's clear that Muir had a grand-old time turning this trope on its head. The characters are unique. Their banter is hilarious, as are Floralinda's encounters with the various beasts inhabiting the forty flights of the tower. There's also a lot of social commentary going on here and I loved how much Muir was able to address in the span of such a short, quirky story.

This was my first time reading anything by Muir (I have yet to check out Gideon the Ninth or it's sequel) and I can say that I'm definitely interested in checking out more from her now. I had heard mixed reviews about Gideon primarily because of Muir's writing style - you either love it or you don't. I fall in the former camp and I'm excited to see what else this author has in store.

"It's also not fair that stupidity has gotten you this far. That's another creature you've killed simply by having no brains, which makes anyone with brains feel as though it isn't worth the headache of having them."

Princess Floralinda finds herself locked up at the top of a tower in this novella that I can only think to describe as a fairy tale survivalist story. When princes can't get past even the first of forty challenges, Floralinda starts to do some very unprincesslike things to get out. With the begrudging help of a self-interested, quick-thinking, non-binary fairy, our princess starts working her way down the tower. She'll have to get a lot smarter, stronger, and meaner to walk out of her magical prison.

The humor is incisive, the plot is grim, and the fairy tale characters defy their roles. Check it out when it's released next month on 11/30.

Thank you to NetGalley and Subterranean Press for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Tamsyn Muir turns the princess in the tower trope on its head. A quick fun read. I liked the interaction with Cobweb the non-binary fairy. A dark and delightful read.

Surprising absolute no one, I loved this book. It was funny and strange and dark, all things I’ve come to expect from Tamsyn Muir. However, this story is so remarkably different than the Locked Tomb trilogy that I still found it fresh and enchanting, even after reading hundreds of pages of her writing in the last year alone.

This story is half The Princess Bride, half The Paper Bag Princess, all kick-ass subversion of fairy tale tropes. Princess Floralinda has been locked away in a tower by a witch, as princesses are wont to be. Some two dozen nights try to rescue her, but all of them die on the first floor, to say nothing of the monsters in the rest of the forty-flight tower. As the months draw on and summer turns to fall, Princess Floralinda is desperate to get out.

Enter Cobweb, a beautiful and agitated fairy. Cobweb arrives in the tower with a broken wing, which Floralinda tries to mend. After Cobweb’s cunning ideas help Floralinda battle her way through the goblins and spider on the uppermost flights of the tower, Floralinda begins to make a plan (which is difficult and unusual for a princess to do). She imprisons Cobweb, forcing the fairy to help her battle her way from the top of the tower all the way to the bottom floor, where a dragon awaits. If all goes according to plan, Floralinda hopes that she’ll be reunited with her family in time for Christmas.

This book very much reads and feels like a fairy tale. It’s built on a world of fantasy tropes, and Muir’s prose sings like an old fable. However, this is far from your typical story. The princes are useless, and the witch is more concerned with the ambiance of the tower than the mechanics. Cobweb is a chemistry-obsessed, somewhat mean, genderless fairy creature whose just as likely to insult Floralinda as to help her. Floralinda herself begins the story as a useless crybaby but grows in her strength and craftiness with each chapter. It’s a fun and thoroughly modern take on the fantasy tropes of old.

All in all, I found this book a joy to read. I’m beyond starstruck at the range Muir has demonstrated in her writing—this book is worlds away in content and tone from the Locked Tomb trilogy, but it’s just as good as the series that made her famous. With every new title, Muir cements herself as one of my all-time favorite authors. Thank you very much to Netgalley and Subterranean Press for the arc!!

Thank you to Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Wow this book was fun. I definitely requested it because I saw Tamsyn Muir’s name and anything she writes is an auto-request from me because I love her, but MAN this one was a ride! I wish it was longer but also I don’t? I thought the characters were phenomenal and it went in such a wonderful direction that wasn’t entirely unexpected but was still delightful. Floralinda’s character arc/development was so fun to read, and seeing how she changes from the beginning to the end was simply so good. Normally I’m a little hesitant regarding books that have a very very low amount of characters because I get worried about whether or not I will like them- and I’ll be honest, I really didn’t like Floralinda at first, but I found her predicament so interesting and the writing so fast paced and magnetic that I just kept going until suddenly I was at the very end and sad that I read it so fast. I’m so excited to tell my friends about this story and recommend it to so many people. It’s so different from Muir’s other work that it really stood out.

Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower is a witty, dark, and hilarious fairy tale that reads like a Zelda game that never happened. When she realizes no princes will succeed in rescuing her, Princess Floralinda makes her way down every flight of the monstrous tower she’s been trapped in and reclaims her story, accompanied only by a delightfully wry fairy named Cobweb and the lessons Floralinda learns about herself on the way down. While Muir’s novella did risk feeling repetitive at times, it proved to be an immersive and entertaining read that subverts our fairy tale expectations and—as with any of her writing—leaves us wanting more.

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Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower by Tamsyn Muir is an adult fairytale retelling a version of Rapunzel, but with a twist. Ms. Muir is an award winning author, known for her Locked Tomb trilogy.

Floralinda, a princess, has been jailed by a witch in a 40 story tower and is awaiting a prince to come and rescue her. The witch, however, done things right this time and put a monster on every level which the princes will have to fight through; none makes it through the first floor and eventually they stop coming.

With the reluctant help of an abusive, and not so passive, but aggressive fairy Floralinda needs to let go of her princess ways and manage to somehow survive.

I have really enjoyed the author’s Locked Tomb trilogy (the first two books, the third one hasn’t come out yet), I like her writing style, humor, and storytelling abilities. Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower by Tamsyn Muir continues the tradition of fairytales, how they have changed for decades to teach society about dangers, ethics, as well as relationships and more.

In this novel Ms. Muir wrote a tale which takes a familiar story, mixes it with Game of Death (the Bruce Lee – Kareem Abdul Jabbar classic), and a touch of Mortal Kombat for good measure. It is certainly very creative, and lots of fun.

While simplistic on the surface, I thought the story was very innovative with a very clever take on an old tale. Each chapter tells of a different monster (almost every chapter, it’s a novella after all) in the tower. What happens to that monster, if something happens, I’ll leave up to you to find out.

I was surprised about the growth of the protagonist, Princess Floralinda, during this short book. She discovers things she can do, moral fortitude she did not know she has, and facing an unknown future which might be counted in days and weeks.

Ms. Muir’s writing style is just as engrossing and funny as it is in the Lost Tomb series, but not as insane which makes sense since the protagonist is not… well… crazy either. I enjoyed the darkness and humor embedded in simple sentences, told with skill to create a compelling narrative.

I was really impressed to read this type of story from the author, which kept up her writing style outside of the series which she became known for. The story is interesting, charming, and entertaining for kids of all ages, if you’re looking for something the whole family can enjoy.

TY Subterranean Press & Netgalley for the ARC! Tamsyn Muir is a delight. This novella is a fast read & a snarky, silly, and referential redux on your favorite faerie tales featuring a bottom-of-the-garden faerie named Cobweb & a highly flawed princess named Floralinda.

Synopsis: After a witch locks her in a tower for “the art of the thing,” Princess Floralinda must take on forty monsters to escape the forty floors of her confinement.