* Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. *

A moderately enjoyable read with good fantastical elements, I just needed more. This book had a terribly intriguing premise and so much promise, but did not fulfill all of the hope I had for it. The writing was good and the characters had the framings to be believable, full, and dynamic, but the overarching theme here was a lack of full development. Execution was lacking.

The story follows the four Grimm sisters individually, but in an arc that will inevitably weave their stories together along the way. This stylistic choice makes sense, but may be the reason that the overall tale became less than I expected. To try and condense four full stories into such a relatively short novel was probably a big part of the undoing of the potential; at least in my eyes. I feel the premise may have been more successful if separated to follow one sister at a time and bridge the stories as a series. As it was, I loved each sister and the story they were telling as well as the original tales they were based on. There was so much there that gave me joy, perhaps I'm just too much of a glutton in that I wanted a fuller picture. Each individual story had so much potential for depth, but the surface was merely scratched. There was a good start to everything, but not enough full exploration. There is a lot of talent behind the author and I fully feel she could create something masterful if given the room through more pages to draw out the intricacies of each character and plot line.

The individual stories had such good imagination and each character was woven around a classic tale reimagined to be all its own. I appreciated the little touches that acted as nods to the original stories and I liked seeing how each girl's life had developed. I wanted to know more of their backstories and see more of their progression from child to adulthood. I wanted things to be more drawn out, with their individual relationships garnering more depth and side characters fleshing out more through the pages. Again, the potential and starts of all this were present, but just didn't feel pursued. As it was, relationships felt rushed and brushed over, making them feel sometimes less than natural. And there were a few areas where there appeared to be the presence of instalove, something that tends to turn me off in most cases.

I was left with A LOT of questions that made the ending feel like a terrible let down. There was nothing to explain what happened to the girls and their lives in the real world following the conclusion. There was a climax, but it then somewhat petered out without true resolution of all the pieces. The writing was good and the character development was moving with good promise when it all fell to...well...virtually nothing.

I wanted so much more from this. It was a decent read and I think there is a good chance that something magnificent could come from this author in the future, I just think this was sent out into the world too early. It needed more room to spread its wings and become something full.