Category Archives: Fantasy

345C: Children’s Princess book with a dress making competition to find new Queen

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I’m looking for a book that I remember absolutely loving when I was about 6 or 7. The plot that I remember is about a young princess whose mother died when she was young. She loves dresses and her father the King thinks that as she grows up, it’s very important that she has a mother figure. So he (or maybe someone else) decides to start a kingdom-wide competition where all the women design their own gowns and there will be a big ball and the princess will choose which dress she likes best, and that will be her new mother. I think the book shows all the rich women in the kingdom spending all of their money on these fancy dresses and then there is a poor woman who makes her own beautiful and simple dress and goes to the ball and of course she gets picked to be the new Queen! I think there may be other details about the poor woman and the princess, but I can’t remember any! I thought that the title was something like The Princess Dress or something like that, but that may be completely wrong too.
This would be a fantasy children’s picture book. Probably aimed at grades kindergarten to second grade. I read it around the years of 2000-2002, but I don’t know when it was published.
I hope you can help! This has been driving me crazy for years!!

344P: Red Haired Princess Must Kill Mother With Ceremonial Dagger

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I’m searching for the title of a young adult fantasy book about a Celtic princess with red hair, who in order to become queen must kill her mother with a their ceremonial dagger, according to their tradition. I thought the title was QUEEN’S BLADE or WITCH'S BLADE, but I haven’t had any luck locating the book. I also think the princess had a Roman father. Any help you can provide is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

344N: Undercover Magical Woman and Her Moody Cat (Series) (Solved!)

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It's a series about a young woman who was born into a powerful magical prophecy & a secret society was to murder her at her birth, but she was taken & given to a rich man in a different magical ability/ house/ guild who raised her to believe that she was weak in magical power, so she became a stiletto-wearing, marriage minded socialite instead. She just graduated from the academy(?), & her dream job/ life ambition is to be the magical administration building's reception hall's decorator so she can meet & marry a powerful man with the right status from an appropriate guild/family.  However, her secret boyfriend/ leader of the magical world/ head of the most powerful guild (whom she’s known & flirted with forever because of her high-status parents) gives the job to her bff (whom he's dating on the side & plans to marry because she's more magically suitable), & forces her to join a rough & dangerous monster/ bad guy/ naughty troll/ misbehaving goblin- hunting task force which is lead by the brother she didn't know her boyfriend had. So she does, in her stilettos, on her own terms, & with her funny & excessively pampered cat.


I think it's 3 books.


First one they end up undercover at a hotel, & the girl works with the big hunky brother guy (who is secretly not awesome, who likes to hook up with & wreck the women on his team, I think his last team hook up was another guy on the team’s fiancée & she died... and now that guy’s not on the team), a funny, charming guy who spends more time in the bathroom & on his hair than she does, who we find out in book 2 is pure awesome, & a huge & burly animal mage guy who soothes her moody cat. She & the brother work while while the 2 funny teammates chase pretty girls at the pool in their downtime.


I think she makes herself & the brother guy disappear at the pool at one point while they amp the volume on two bad guys’ conversation.

There may have been a potty-mouthed goblin issue in book 1 or maybe 3?

2nd book she & the awesome hair guy go undercover as a married couple to a haunted, murder Inn, where the cook/maid? Is a weather mage who kills off the guests & maybe the owner too.

I read these within the last 1-3 years, I believe. It’s all starting to blur together, & I can’t remember book 3 which is why it popped up in my literary Rolodex so I can now read it again! It was hysterical & I loved it & cant remember everything anymore!!! Huzzah for the rereads!  But I can’t remember the title or cover either so I can’t find it.

344F: YA Fantasy Fae Man With Backwards Bird Feet

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A young female (I think orphan) takes a train to a mansion (orphanage?) with just a suitcase. The master of the house is a man with backwards bird feet. The young girl finds out everyone’s fae and she’s the daughter of powerful fae (king & queen?)

A pair of the fae are twins, I think. There’s a werewolf in the woods…there is some sort of fae event in a tent…I don’t remember anything else.

It was a paperback.

I believe there’s at least a sequel which is why I’m trying to find it.

Not sure when book was set.

Average length book. Maybe 250-300 pages?

English.

I think it was newish when I read it a few years ago and I think the sequel was due out a few years ago but I could be wrong.

Thanks for any help! It’s driving me nuts. I thought it was Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children but started reading that and it’s definitely not it lol.

343Q: Boy Collects Golden Dragon Scales to Make A Dragon (Solved!)

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Here are the details of a book my dad read around 1960 (possibly as late as 1963, but unlikely).

Plot elements: A boy (named maybe Ling or Lo, or a hyphenated name with one of those syllables) goes on a long quest collecting golden dragon scales that in the end fit together like a puzzle and make a dragon.

Genre: kids chapter book

Publish date: likely late 40’s early 50’s (my dad’s best guess—it was a library book)

Physical description of book: blue cloth hardcover

Illustrations: he remembers an illustrative motif of cranes, like on chapter headings maybe

Some books he claims it is NOT that I’ve found:

  • Loot of the Flying Dragon (by Kenneth Payson Kempton)
  • The Pink Porcelain Pipe (by Pauline Scott)
  • The Overcoming of the Dragon (by LC Sturgis)
  • The Last Dragon (by Dan Totheroh)

Many thanks for whatever you can do! I’ll at least know I tried my best after gnawing this bone for decades.

343M: Girl on a Magic Quest

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Okay. I’ve been searching for this children’s book for literally over 15 years. I was probably about 10 years old when I visited the Orem Library. The librarian gave me this book telling me that I would probably love it. I read it, loved it, and that’s what got me started in my love of reading! I have since tried to find it with absolutely no luck. Here I will dedicate a post in the hopes that someone, somewhere will know what I am talking about. Here are the few details I know about the plot.

-Main character is a young girl.
-Girl goes to live with her aunts (might be good friends of parents and not relatives)
-Things seem normal except the girl is forbidden to read from a certain book the aunts have.
-One day the aunts get kidnapped and the girl must go into another world to find them.
-The girl has a companion that is a little dwarf, gnome, or other weird creature.
-As the girl progresses in her journey she learns new spells that help her progress.
-At one point the girl must get a new guide given to her by the bad guy (maybe) but she knows a spell that forces her old companion to tell the truth if the new guy is trustworthy so she gets a different one.

I know these details are really random but perhaps a random google search will get some stranger’s attention and they can help out. Or maybe one of you have just been holding out on me! 🙂

343E: Grotesque Picture Book (Solved!)

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I read this book in the 1980s. There were large pictures on every page. The art was reminiscent of Arthur Rackham or the 1980s movie "Flight of Dragons." The figures could be quite grotesque with pointy ears, grey skin, or warts. The main character is a young girl. At one point she has to cross a wide canyon or chasm on a very thin or invisible string. I believe there is an ogress, troll, or giant that she outwits. The layout of the book was landscape (not portrait) and the cover had a purple border. Any help you could provide finding this book would be greatly appreciated!

342X: Asian Inspired Dragon Picture Book

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I was hoping someone out there would have a bit of information on a book I’ve been looking for over the last 20-25 years. The book was a hardcover, horizontal/landscape style. It was highly stylized, with what I could only describe as flat/paper like art. The book had little story to speak of, with the appeal being the detailed art. I believe the book had some fold outs as well.
The little text it had was descriptions of the dragons (if there even was that). It may have served as an encyclopedia of different dragons (Ice Dragon, Mountain Dragon, Forest Dragon, etc).

The dragons were mostly Asian-like in nature but there may have been some Western ones tacked on as well.

I think it was printed in the late 80s or early 90s, but it may just have been when the book was available to me. I can’t see it being from before the 1970s, it’s just too stylized. It’s possible, but I don’t think it was.

341U: Similar to the princess and the frog

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When I was quite small, I remember having a favorite fantasy book along the lines of the princess and the frog, but I can never seem to remember more than a few details. I’ve tried really hard to find it, but no one in my family even remembers the book aside from me...

What I can remember is this:

- Two people are turned into frogs

- There’s a witch that captures them

- When they escape, they steal a vial of dragon's breath that is used later for a spell I mostly forget... I think it’s used to turn either them or the otter human again? Or to trade for something?

- There’s a magical bracelet which they both must put an arm in to be returned to being human

- There’s an otter, who once was human, who gets them the bracelet because the woman (possibly fairy?) that was keeping it was once his lover before he was turned by the same witch from before

- I believe at one point someone pretends to be a fairy, and that fairy finds out and gets offended?

And that’s mostly all I can remember, aside from the scenery I imagined along with the story as a kid. I’ve been searching for around 5 years now and would LOVE to get to read it again!!