Written by Emma Knight
Amazing how a simple flower can have such an effect on someone. When you receive a rose from Briar Pryce, you are in for more than a nice smelling flower. And no, this is not another dystopian version of The Bachelorette. With a gift that she never really wanted, Briar delivers roses that contain emotion. Once pricked or attacked by a flurry of petals, you are overwhelmed with the feelings attached to the particular coloured coded roses.
Briar, flower delivery girl turned private investigator, goes on a wild goose chase for the Princesses Know-not (very creative name for us humans) boyfriend Rick who has been mysteriously kidnapped. After being selected because of her ability to track people by their emotional tracks that they leave behind, Briar takes the job almost immediately. Completing this mission may be the only opportunity to turn her cat roommate human again after she ate from a cursed muffin basket which was supposedly meant for Briar. Paired with Antoine, a moral compass in the form of a Knight, they follow Rick’s trail around the New York and The Apple in search of clues before the magical kingdom breaks into all-out war.
Pricked is based in a world where fairy-tale magic exists and lurks in the shadows. What the kingdom lacked in origin and basic fantasy, it made up in sensory overload. When you first enter The Apple, you feel like you enter a theme park with places like Ballgown District and Lovers’ Lane, the Gingerbread Tenements and Havmercy Park. It can feel like you are supposed to already know this place so you are bombarded with information instead of being shown the city.
From flirtatious royal ex’s to fashionista fairy godmothers and hungry mountain ogres, Pricked has a wide range of characters who you barely get to scratch the surface with. Jumping into this book I felt like I was missing bits of important information as well as backstories. Briar’s relationship with Cade, her ex-boyfriend now housemate, is obviously a big influence on her attitude towards her powers and is very touchy at time, yet it feels like you had to be there for their problem to really understand what is going through her head. It would have been nicer to see more depth in the main characters so I got to know them and their motivations more. They all seem to be very stereotypical people that you find in every book which makes putting ideas together to guess what is happening next fun.
Though the magical side of this book can also lose it after a while with Briar’s ‘I really don’t want to be here’ attitude and Antoine’s positive attitude brings some well needed overenthusiastic ‘we can do this’ vibes.
For a book about emotion, Pricked ironically lacks real emotion at some points. I started to assume by the end of the book, as Briar learns to control the balance between her powers and emotions, that the more emotions and memories she gives away, the less feelings she will have. Or she will just get super overwhelmed by everyone’s emotions and turn into a giant rose
You know you have stumbled on to a good book when you immediately look up if there is a sequel coming. Pricked is a fun read for when you want to dive into a little fantasy but don’t have the brainpower to concentrate on a magnitude of details. Scott Mooney has truly written a great novel with some great twists and a little bit of heart.
Pricked is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
Briar Pryce has the power to change the emotions of others by handing them a rose. It is a talent that has done surprisingly little for her, besides landing her a dead-end enchantment delivery job and killing any chance she had with her childhood-crush-turned-roommate. Worst of all, her ability might be responsible for getting her best friend transformed into a cat via a cursed muffin basket. Needless to say, Briar is nowhere near happily-ever-after. But that’s just life as a twenty-something in the Poisoned Apple, New York City’s lost borough of fairy-tale wonder and rent-controlled magic.
When Briar reluctantly agrees to help find a princess’s kidnapped boyfriend in exchange for reversing the curse on her friend, she gets the heroic quest she never really wanted. Unfortunately, the life of a noble heroine is not all it’s cracked up to be – the hours blow, and Briar suspect that the Royal family employing her might be evil, Republican, or both. To complete the suckage, a killer smoke magician is stalking Briar as she searches both the Poisoned Apple and Manhattan for the missing boy. As tensions between the Poisoned Apple royalty ignite and civil war looms, Briar must figure out how to write her own happy ending–or she’ll just be ending.
