Fairytale Beginnings by Holly Martin [review]

Title: Fairytale Beginnings

Author: Holly Martin

299 pages

Language: English

Genre: Romance

First published: 2015

My rating: 3/5

Milly Rose was very passionate about history. She was crazy about historical buildings...especially castles because they remind her of fairytales. Her undying love for anything Disney made her into a hopeless romantic twenty-something-years-old girl who saw the world from a pair of rose-tinted-spectacles. Eventhough she believed in a happy ever after, she also believed that it was not meant for her: she had too many bad relationships in the past to prove that.

Lord Cameron Heartstone inherited a castle full of staff and a debt from his father who had been missing from Cameron's life since he was 5 years old. He couldn't pay the debt, even with his royalty from writing successful series, so he had no choice but to fire the entire staff, making the villagers hated him. He was desperate to find solution for his financial problem, and offered his castle to Castle Heritage, a company dealing with historical buildings.

"What if he is your happy ever after? Isn't it worth taking a risk on?"

It started when Milly accepted the job from her company to test a castle named Clover Castle in a remote village. Her car broke down on the way, and she had to walk the rest of the way to the castle with blue roofs and full of turrets. It looked just like a disney castle from Cinderella, and she fell in love with the building instantly.

The Lord of the castle, on the other hand, was unlike Milly's expectations. He was young, big, handsome, and smoking hot. She couldn't fight off the attraction that was blossoming in her mind.

It started innocently enough, with Milly testing the dust and the wall here and there, but of course everything got a bit steamy when she accidentally fell into a hole on the ground just like Alice in Wonderland. After being rescued by Cameron, and accidentally seeing each other naked (ups), things were getting...*ehem*...better between them.

The good thing about this novel is that it presented a little bit adventure here and there and also a bit of mystery here and there. What with the old castle, the history, the storybook-style village, creepy villagers, and odd traditions, And don't forget, the Gray Lady, the ghost that haunted the dungeon of Clover Castle. She was rumored to be protecting the Heartstone family line and the treasure hidden by one of Cameron's ancestors. And what's with the Hearstone Family Curse? And the thousand years of searching true love to break the curse?

I loved the whole fairytale-ish parts of the story, it gives a feeling of reading a nice fairytale when I was a kid. I loved the first half of the book since I don't know what I expected from the story. But the last half of the story seemed so cliche with the appearance of Olivia the PA. I mean, she was a very typical antagonist girl. Can it be anymore obvious? Personally, Olivia's appearance kind of ruined the whole fairytale atmosphere there in the story and turning it into typical contemporary romance, which is a little meh to be honest.

But still, I really enjoyed reading this immensely. Especially the funny parts that cracked me up everytime. And mind you, future readers, that it is also a little bit *ehem* on the adult side, eventhough the sex scenes are pretty mild, actually. By the way, this is my first Holly Martin book, and I think I quite like her writting style.

Enjoy.
See you in the next post ^_^