An entertaining read - a reimagining of the Snow White fairy tale, set in Italy with the infamous Lucrezia Borgia cast as the Evil Queen. Here Snow White is Bianca de Nevada, the daughter of a Spanish sometime acquaintance of the Borgias.

Most of the more familiar elements of the original story are still in place: the mirror, the hunter, the dwarves and the three visits of the disguised queen are all present and accounted for. The addition of Bianca's father's quest for the branch from the Tree of Knowledge is new - at least in my experience - and added a greater depth to the story.

The idea of stone becoming flesh and blood is not new, but the way Maguire describes the Dwarves evolution into self-aware creatures was particularly well-written, as was Bianca's imagining of their dirt-and-root surroundings into more suitable environs.

Maguire is skilled at taking this fairytale and twisting it just enough to bring it closer to its darker origins, and able to keep the reader's interest in spite of the fact we all really *do* know how it will end. He makes the journey there more compelling than I'd expected, especially when we learn the origins of various elements of the tale. The mirror, for one; the gooseboy, for another.

The only thing I really didn't like about this was actually one of the things I liked about it, too. The use of the Borgia family, which rooted the story in a sort of "alternate history/reality" was at times quite distracting. When I was able to forget that element, I enjoyed the book even more.

Definitely well worth a read.