The Women of Fantasy

Mercedes Lackey is well known for her Heralds of Valdemar series - and her feminist fantasy. I just finished book 3 of her Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms series.

Book 1, The Fairy Godmother (Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms, Book 1), is a funky twist on Cinderella.
Book 2, One Good Knight (Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms, Book 2) is a cute tale of a princess and a dragon.
Book 3, Fortune's Fool (Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms, Book 3), is about the daughter of the Sea King who uses her magical abilities of being able to walk on dry land to spy for her father, and the "Fortunate Fool" she meets and falls in love with. Very reminiscent of Piers Anthony style writing.
The next book, The Snow Queen (Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms, Book 4), I haven't read yet but am looking forward to.

All in all, this is a nice collection of light reads with clever twists on classic fairy tales. It's not the most shining example of works by Mercedes Lackey, but they are cute fun time diversions. Each book I've read has some sort of tie-in to the previous books and I imagine The Snow Queen won't be any different.

Snow Queen is on the shelves at Barnes and Noble and the other books were all available at amazon.com (see links above) and my local library.

Happy reading!

P.S. I am currently beginning 2 books - alternating as the mood strikes - Wrapt in Crystal by Sharon Shinn & Wolfskin by Juliet Marillier. :)