by Jill Myles

“You’re Marrying me for my money?”
“Absolutely not. I’m marrying you for your charming demeanour.”
-21%

Title: The Scarecrow King
Author: Jill Myles
Publisher: Jill Myles
Book: Stand Alone
Genre: Fairytale retelling/Closed door romance
Found: Amazon
Rating: 4.5

Princess Rinda of Balinore knows of only one way to get her cold father’s attention – to be an obnoxious, spoiled princess. When she finds out that the king plan to marrying her off to a far-flung nobleman, she puts on her best bratty show in front of the entire court. But Rinda’s plan backfires, and she soon finds herself married to the most ineligible man ever. Her new husband is monastery raised, poor as dirt, and a traveling minstrel.
A very, very bad traveling minstrel.
But Alek isn’t what he seems like on the surface, and neither is Rinda. She won’t take this marriage lying down, and schemes to find herself a new husband – a king. But as she and Alek travel together, they learn that not only are appearances deceiving, but goals can change in the blink of an eye, and love can get in the way of the strongest plans…
The Scarecrow King is a romantic retelling of the King Thrushbeard fairy tale.

-Goodreads

I’ve read a few other books by Jill Myles and I haven’t liked them nearly as much as I did this one. The only difference being that this is a closed door romance – meaning that you don’t join the couple in the bedroom – but I don’t think that’s why I liked it more. It’s not that it’s a fairytale retelling for she has a whole series of them, though they also involve time travel.

Perhaps it was because I’ve never heard of this fairytale. And hearing her explanation at the end – that the original had a sense of ‘teaching the little woman a lesson’ – I can see why she retold it.

I don’t care that you could see this early on where it was going, it was lovely. The character development they went through was substantial, at least on Rinda’s part, and believable and while we know little of Alek before hand, he is certainly different at the end from the start. I’m happy for Rinda, had she changed any less her return home would have been devastating. I just wish we’d seen her introducing her husband to her sister! That would have been spectacular I’m sure.

I’ve never heard of the King Thrushbeard fairytale and I’m not sure I want to read the original now having enjoyed this one so much. I don’t want it ruined!