Happily Never After by Isabella Fontaine & Ken Brosky

Title: Happily Never After
Series: Grimm Chronicles
Author: Isabella Fontaine & Ken Brosky
Previous Books in Series: Prince Charming Must Die!
Rating: 4 stars

Refresher: Alice must use a magic pen to destroy the corrupted creatures brought to life from the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tales

So I am back for the second installment of this series, The Grimm Chronicles, which promises to offer a new title every other month. Which, let’s face it, is reason enough to take a look at it. At least it is for me, who reviews three books a week and still has some time to read on the side. But it’s also worth checking out for anyone who thinks that stories are better when there is an invisible rabbit sidekick doing all the google searches.

I liked Happily Never After somewhat better than Prince Charming Must Die! In the first book, Alice spent a lot of time trying to figure out whether her boyfriend Edward was evil, when there was a lot of evidence that he was and no evidence that he was not. This second one features some more innovative sleuthing, including geocoding and mysterious trips to the aquarium. We also get hints of an uber-plot involving dwarves foreclosing on somewhat innocent people’s homes.

There were still some parts that had me rolling my eyes. I mean, faced with dreams about a woman named Cindy who has power over rats, your average 8-year-old Disney fan could probably figure out who the villain was long before Alice did. And Alice seemed disproportionately embarrassed by her parents in a manner more reminiscent of a younger teen. There’s also a chapter from Briar the rabbit’s point of view in which he directly addressed the audience, and I couldn’t decide whether I thought it was cute or lame.

All in all, though, The Grimm Chronicles is an entertaining series, and I am interested to see where it goes next.

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