Book Review: The Captive Maiden

So this is the fourth book in Ms. Dickeron's series. I didn't read the second (explanation below), and although I did read and write a review for the third (Fairest Beauty, about Snow White), I decided I won't post it for a while. Short version, I thought the book was well-crafted, but I have some serious issues with some of the content, but it's about a rather sensitive topic (to me, at the moment) and I don't feel up to defending my views on that particular topic just now. The world doesn't need yet more people making statements and then not defending them properly, so I'll finish that review when I feel up to it. 

Source

Book two happened in England, and I skipped it because I wasn't particularly interested in reading a Melanie Dickerson book set in England. She mentions in a couple of her authors' notes about how she's visited Germany, and I want to read her stories set in Germany. I have other authors to read about medieval England for; with Germany, I'll stick with Ms. Dickerson. 

Which brings me to Captive Maiden, which I liked significantly better than Fairest Beauty. 

This is the Cinderella story. The leading lady's name is Gisela, and the main guy is Valten, the older brother of the hero in the last book. 

There are a lot of things I liked about this book, and I'm not sure if there's a great way to organize my thoughts, so I'll go topical. 

First off, the story: Gisela's father raises and sells horses for knights. She meets Valten when she's seven and he's fourteen, and he comes to her father's farm to buy a knight's horse, and he promises her to look after the horse that he buys. Great opening. But of course, Gisela's father dies, and her stepmother treats her horribly, forcing her to be a servant. (It was at this point that I suddenly realized how similar the Snow White and Cinderella stories are.) But ten years later, during a joust in Hagenheim, she and Valten accidentally cross paths again--along with another knight who despises Valten but thinks Gisela is lovely. Escapades and jousting ensue, followed by the classic fairy tale ball. 

Here is where the story departs from the original fairy tale: the big ball happens halfway through the story. Gisela is kidnapped at the ball, and the rest of the story is about trying to save her. I sincerely appreciate this change--it just made the whole story more interesting. 

Overall, this story made me roll my eyes at the recent live-action Cinderella movie even more, which I didn't think was possible. It looks to me like Ms. Dickerson watched the original Disney animated movie (the good one), and had a lot of the same concerns as other people--why didn't Cinderella just leave the manor? Why did Cinderella's father marry a horrible woman? Now, I didn't care about those details because the story is a fairy tale, and those sorts of things aren't really important for a fairy tale, but if you're writing a novel about them, there's certainly space to address those questions--and, if you address them well, it doesn't detract from the story. (When it's done badly, that's different.) Ms. Dickerson addressed these concerns far more capably than the recent Disney travesty.

First off, Gisela's father did marry an awful woman, but he clued into the fact that she was an awful woman before he died. We know this because at one point, he told Gisela to hide his family's money and her mother's clothes where the stepmother couldn't find them--so he's protecting his daughter when he's still alive. Why did he marry her? Never mentioned, but the fact that he clued in works for me. 

Secondly, in this one, Gisela is planning to leave one day, with that money her father made her hide. She hasn't left yet because of all her father's horses--living, sentient creatures, unlike the house that kept the live-action Cinderella there. But she knows that the stepmother is going to sell them all one day, and Gisela is determined to leave just as soon as that happens. She just happens to meet Valten again, and fall in love with him, before she can carry out her plan. There are also scenes where Gisela stands up to her and argues with her. 

So with that out of the way, on to the characters. 

First off, the main characters--they're both great, and they're an interesting contrast. Valten is a straight-talking, what-you-see-is-what-you-get, does-not-feel-comfortable-around-people type of person; in sharp contrast, Gisela hides her thoughts, fears, and discomfort, slides smoothly into pretty much all social situations, and has no problem meeting and talking with any new people (of any rank). Their romance makes sense because Gisela can soften Valten's edge and make him more at ease around people, while Valten can add force to back up Gisela's confidence. They bond over their shared love of horses, which feels like that fairy tale element of bringing in animals. I guess it's technically true their romance is extremely fast, a la a Disney animated fairy tale, but you don't really notice that, the way the story is written. It feels like more time passed. 

The villains--there were three of them--were not of the same creepy caliber as Moncore. Most of the time, they felt more like the secondary villain in Healer's Apprentice. They weren't bad, and I do think the biggest villain (which is not the stepmother, surprise!) was competently written and genuinely complex. While I would have liked another Moncore villain, these ones aren't the worst. Maybe Ms. Dickerson was tired of writing Moncore-type villains and wanted to branch out. *shrug*

The way this story is structured, it definitely centers heavily around the two main characters, far more than the other two I read did. That's fine, because they really are my favorite main characters so far. It's just different from the other two. 

This book definitely has more action than Healer's Apprentice. Valten is a jouster, so the centerpiece of the story isn't just a formal ball, but instead a massive multi-day jousting tournament with dancing and feasts attached. However, the action doesn't end after the jousts, as there are still fights, escapes, and chases. I really appreciated that, since I thought it was just more exciting overall. 

My biggest... complaint? disagreement?... my biggest I-would-have-done-this-differently is this: after going into Gisela's past as I described above, Ms. Dickerson went even more into Gisela's family's story by bringing up her mother and her aunt's past, but I rather wish that time had been dedicated instead to focusing on Valten and his family. One very simple reason that this would have been applicable here is that it's really the first time we see all of Valten's family together for longer than a few chapters (minus Gabe, the male lead from the third book), so it would have made sense to see more of them. Another, more complex reason, is that this could have been used to develop Valten's character more. He's a quiet giant, but Gabe and his oldest sister Margharetta are outgoing and talkative--couldn't that have been a strong dynamic? Valten is able to stay the way he is because he trusts Gabe and Margharetta to do all his talking for them? (And wouldn't that have made the entire ending of Book 3, and the beginning of this one, all the more poignant and painful--and, therefore, the complete ending of this book even more rewarding and valuable?) A dynamic similar to this was hinted at a few times between Valten and Margharetta, but I would have liked to have seen it properly developed. And what about his youngest siblings? They all adore him, but there's never a single scene in the book where Valten interacts with them. There is a scene where Gisela imagines him interacting with them (and she imagines that his tension and awkwardness around new people doesn't extend to his family), but no scene where he actually does. To me, that felt like a missed opportunity. 

A second issue I have with this story is what I think is supposed to be the solid conclusion. Valten and Gisela are in a healer's cottage (a recurring scene from the previous book), and there is a big discussion about their relationship. It felt unnecessary to me for a couple of reasons: first, this is the third time they've discussed getting married (well, second-and-a-half; I'm not sure the first time really counts), and second, both of them feel extremely out of character here. Valten does most of the (very eloquent) talking, and Gisela gets fretful and insecure when she doesn't really need to. But it's short. 

A third overall issue that I'm going to mention is that this is the first book by Ms. Dickerson that I've read that doesn't feel as much like a fairy tale. The lack of the Moncore-like villain detracts from that aspect. Granted, barely any attention is paid to the world they're in--the focus is on the two characters, and most of the world is focused on the jousting--but if not for that, I'd be tempted to say this should be more like historical fiction. The only place where this really comes up is the mendicant character, about two thirds of the way through the book. Because this book doesn't feel like a fairy tale, I want to evaluate this character according to the times. For what it's worth, two mendicant orders, the Dominicans and the Franciscans, had already been founded by the early thirteenth century, and this story takes place in the early fifteenth century, so that's accurate enough, although we don't get told which order this character comes from. It aggravated me a little. There were also a few exceptional coincidences... 

But in the end, this story was enjoyable because the main characters were very enjoyable. The changes in the Cinderella story made sense, and the action and fighting were a lot of fun. Overall, I enjoyed it, and I would certainly recommend this story!