Fair Peril

Rating:
Summary: "We don't have princes here. We don't even have Kennedys."
Review: Both riotously funny and sweetly touching, _Fair Peril_ is a fun and wonderful fantasy novel. It's set in modern times, in a sort of "Anytown, USA"--where the shopping mall is a portal into Fairyland, and anything can happen.

It all begins when Buffy Murphy discovers a talking frog who claims to be a prince. Buffy is a divorced and overweight woman, down on her luck, who holds down a practical job in a fake food factory and is a storyteller on the side. Hoping a gimmick will make her storytelling more sought-after, she takes the frog home...and has no plans to kiss it and turn it back into a prince. Enter her teenage daughter. When the frog prince and 16-year-old Emily run away together, Buffy has to find them and rescue Emily from the story she's been caught up in. Buffy finds herself in a world where a star-spangled nightgown renders you a wizard, where misspelling your spell can have disastrous results, and where the blue ogres lurking around the corner might be mundane cops, ready to haul you off to the local mental health center. I won't summarize the plot from here, because it would make no sense if I tried to recount it in this space. But it's a fun and wild ride. In the end, Buffy learns that no story is set in stone, and it's never too late to start all over with "once upon a time".

Rating:
Summary: "We don't have princes here. We don't even have Kennedys."
Review: Both riotously funny and sweetly touching, _Fair Peril_ is a fun and wonderful fantasy novel. It's set in modern times, in a sort of "Anytown, USA"--where the shopping mall is a portal into Fairyland, and anything can happen.

It all begins when Buffy Murphy discovers a talking frog who claims to be a prince. Buffy is a divorced and overweight woman, down on her luck, who holds down a practical job in a fake food factory and is a storyteller on the side. Hoping a gimmick will make her storytelling more sought-after, she takes the frog home...and has no plans to kiss it and turn it back into a prince. Enter her teenage daughter. When the frog prince and 16-year-old Emily run away together, Buffy has to find them and rescue Emily from the story she's been caught up in. Buffy finds herself in a world where a star-spangled nightgown renders you a wizard, where misspelling your spell can have disastrous results, and where the blue ogres lurking around the corner might be mundane cops, ready to haul you off to the local mental health center. I won't summarize the plot from here, because it would make no sense if I tried to recount it in this space. But it's a fun and wild ride. In the end, Buffy learns that no story is set in stone, and it's never too late to start all over with "once upon a time".

Rating:
Summary: A thought provoking exploration of fairy tale myths.
Review: How good is this book? I asked my husband just to read one humorous passage and had to practically arm wrestle him to get the book back! Buffy Murphy, a fat, fortyish, divorcee, who's trying to get her storytelling career going discovers a talking frog in the woods. Naturally, the frog is an ensorcelled prince, who requests a kiss so he may return to his human form. Realizing, he's worth more to her 'froggy'form, Murphy captures the frog and keeps him as a pet until Emily, her rebellious sixteen-year-old daughter, comes to the rescue and both disappear. Buffy must save both her daughter and the newly disenchanted prince from the perils of Mall Tifarious, which turns out to be a whole lot more than someplace to buy Calvin Klein underwear. Characters, including an ogress mother-in-law, a wannabe politician ex-husband, fairies, and a gay librarian, add insight and humor to the tale. Along the way, Buffy discovers a lot about love and writing her own story

Rating:
Summary: this book is an off-beat genious wonder
Review: I am 21 years old, I picked up the book for the first time about 3 years ago (very attractive book cover) and since then I have not found a better book. I read constantly, it keeps the train rides shorter...but nothing has been more pleasing to me than reading Fair Peril. It is a beautiful, witty, epic, small, and everything in between story!
Buffy (main character) is a fascinating woman, with the acidity of thought that only a divorced, middle aged, slightly overweight, cheated-on, story telling person could have. Yet she manages to give it all to the reader in a way in which she has to be adored, and sympathized with. I personally hate Prentis.
Addie! I love addie! he's lovely in everyway...innocent, and frail, like the boy of my dreams. but frailer even.
And then there's Emily...I think of emily as like the rebellious little sister. I see her and I see all the things that a small femine should have. She's just so great.
Fay is another story...but then again....everything is itself and something else isn't it?
Please read the book...it's cheap as hell and you will enjoy it more than any tome. I promise.

Rating:
Summary: Story as mask for self
Review: I guess the smart-a** in me wanted to start a novel with "Once upon a time." Or maybe it was more that I wanted the middle-aged woman main character to be a really tight fit as a mask for myself. Maybe that was why I made Buffy Murphy, fat and fortyish, be a storyteller.

As a result I had a great time, a superlative creative experience, writing Fair Peril. When Buffy was dreaming up a story, so was I -- fairytale seeped out of me. When Buffy discovered the fearsome power of the storyteller, so did I. When Buffy determined to "tell a new story" for what was left of her life, so did I.

When Buffy discovered how to turn people who annoyed her into frogs, so did I -- metaphorically, of course. And what a pleasure it was to find that I could turn them into fogs also, accidentally on purpose, and then let a strong wind of Once Upon A Time just blow them away.

I've never had more fun writing a serious novel.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent fantasy novel
Review: I had never read anything by this author, but I saw that Marion Zimmer Bradley highly recommended it, so I figured it would be worth a shot. This is an amazing novel. It takes you into a world that is disorderly and full of chaos, and shows you more about the nature of people than you would expect from a fantasy novel. Excellent, heart wrenching at times, and Springer's style of writing makes the whole episode very believeable.

Rating:
Summary: A fairy tale with an adult twist.
Review: I'll be honest, I picked up this book at a used book store while waiting for a friend to finish shopping. I started the first paragraph in the store, bought the book cause I couldn't bear not reading more of it and ended up spending the rest of the day wrapped up in the pages. I loved this book.
The heroine is a women my age (you don't get many of those), and of my build (you never get those) and she ends up saving the day and herself. If you enjoy stories that are a little of the real world with an over-lap of the fantasy, you will love this.
This is the first book of Nancy Springers that I have read, but I can assure you that I will be searching for more of them. She is funny (laugh out loud funny) but also a little pensive and thought provoking. If you're looking for a fairy tale with a little nasty adult twist, don't miss this.