Rating: WARTY!
This book seems like it's written for middle-graders (9-12 years) but the main character is seventeen. I'm not sure how well that will go down, but the protagonist, Adela, is one who made me feel, at least at first blush, was well-worth reading about - or in this case, listening to - but although there were amusing and interesting moments, overall, I can't rate this as a worthy read.
Her mom, Queen Cecile, was a commoner who caught the king's eye, but who has evidently learned her 'royal' to a T and has become rather condescending, elite, and arrogant - character flaws of which Adela is well aware. Adela doesn't take after her mom; she's a princess, but it appeared, originally that she was not your usual Disney version. Later this version was revised. Adela at first appeared to be somewhat overweight, but later this was clarified to mean she was tall. She was supposedly not considered to be that great looking, but in the end all of this was practically retracted, and she turned out to be very much a Disney princess.
She had little time for fluff and fancy, but that was all she really had to set her apart, but that's all been done before. She's self-possessed, self-motivated, a bit of a rebel, and her interest is not in attracting a handsome prince in the bloom of youth to her bed, but in the flowers in her own royal garden beds. Sadly though, she ends up being your standard maiden in distress who has to be rescued by a man, and I rather lost interest in it at that point.
Given her horticultural interests - which are actually not that special in the end, it's no surprise that when she learns of a garden party being thrown by the Lady Hortensia, who is rumored to have the most beautiful plants in the kingdom, Adela is determined to go even though she has had no invitation. Garth, the son of the palace gardener, did receive an invitation even though he's never met Hortensia. Curiouser and curiouser! Adela invites herself, and is accompanied by her aunt Marguerite and by Garth.
Lady Hortensia, it turns out, is a witch who is still practicing in a kingdom where magic was supposedly either stamped out or simply died out, if it ever existed. Maybe it was just myth and legend? Adela is about to find out the truth, and it's really rather disconcerting to say the least. All of Hortensia's flowers are bloom though fall is well advanced. More curiously, there is a talking magpie named Krazo, which has an irresistible bird's eye view of the guests' jewels.
If the secret of the magpie is disturbing, then the secret of the flowers is horrifying, but in this world of secrets, maybe Krazo knows one of which Adela an avail herself, because there is no other help for her. If she's to resolve what's gone wrong here, she must do it on her own initiative so we;re told, but in the end she doesn't, and it's this failing - this starting out like this will be a different and female-empowering story and then ending up just another sappy love story that turned me off . I can't recommend this one.
