The Bibliophile's Bookshelf

Title: A Midwinter’s Wedding: A Retelling of The Frog Prince

Series: The Four Kingdoms #3.5

Author: Melanie Cellier

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Retelling, Clean Romance

Rating: 4.5 stars

Review:

A retelling of The Frog Prince fairy tale.

Princess Cordelia is used to being overshadowed by her many brothers and sisters. So when she’s offered the chance to attend her brother’s wedding in a faraway kingdom, she leaps at it. In Northhelm, she’ll finally have the chance to stand out. And maybe, just maybe, she’ll even find romance.

But not everything in the Northhelmian court is as it appears. With her brother distracted by the wedding, only Ferdinand, the ugliest man at court, will listen to Cordelia’s concerns. An observant princess and a strangely amphibious soldier may be the only thing standing between all Four Kingdoms and disaster.

Cordelia will have to overcome prejudice, deceit and danger if she wants to save the day and find romance at A Midwinter’s Wedding. -summary from Goodreads

This was a ridiculously cute winter novella!

This book follows Cordelia, Rafe’s younger sister, as she travels to Northhelm for Rafe and Marie’s wedding. There are a few things happening in this book. One is the midwinter holiday, which reminds me of Christmas. The other is talk of rebellion, which only Cordelia seems to be concerned about.

Cordelia was a super cute character! She liked to have fun and wanted an adventure all her own. This isn’t talked about a lot in The Princess Pact, but there are seven Lanover royal children, so Cordelia is also wanting to have her own thing away from her siblings. She had this girl-ish innocence that I really liked.

There is somewhat of a love triangle, but at the same time not really. William was a more frequent character, and there was definitely a flirtatious relationship between the two. However, Ferdy was always a steady presence in the background, and there was definitely a connection between the two. Unfortunately, it took a while for Cordelia to figure this out, but it made the ending all the sweeter. Ferdy was also just super sweet, caring, and considerate. He also took Cordelia’s concerns, seriously, which I loved so, so much!

We got to see some of our other favorite couples! Alyssa and Max, along with Ava and Hans made an appearance, and I’m pretty sure I live for these moments! I loved seeing these couples again, and how content they are as couples and as kingdoms.

The rebellion part of this story was important, but also kind of lost as it didn’t really come into light until the end of the book. It actually made a lot of sense why this rebellion was happening, and the more I think about it, I’m glad this problem (which would totally happen in real life) was included in the novella. I will say that while I love Rafe, I was a little disappointed he didn’t take his sister’s concerns more seriously. Yes, he was busy with his wedding, but still!

This book was like winter personified! I love winter and the holiday season, so I really enjoyed the wintery activities present throughout the book. I also like it wasn’t focused on the holiday, but the holiday was a steady background.

This novella was a Frog Prince retelling, and Melanie Cellier does it again, and writes such a unique retelling. Instead of the person turning into an actual frog, their physical features change and appear more frog-like. He was cursed because of his parent’s pride, but he had to work some stuff out on his own to get the cursed lifted. A minor spoiler here, but I loved how he had to gain confidence to break his curse. As someone who doesn’t have a lot of confidence it was nice having a character in the same boat, and the solution to their problems was gaining confidence!

This book is the first to do it, but the last chapter takes place from another character’s POV and hints at what is going to happen in the next book.

A Midwinter’s Wedding was an adorable winter Frog Prince retelling, with a fun heroine and considerate love interest! With many beloved characters making a reappearance, a steady holiday background, and a rebellion, this is the perfect winter read!