Blog Tour: Greta and the Goblin King by Chloe Jacobs - Review + Giveaway

Welcome to my stop on the Greta and the Goblin King Blog Tour, hosted by Shane at Itching for Books.  In addition to a giveaway for your own copy of the book and a chance to win Team Isaac/Team Wyatt buttons, I've also got my review of this book for your reading pleasure.

Title: Greta and the Goblin King
Author: Chloe Jacobs
Series: The Mylena Chronicles, book 1
Publisher: Entangled Publishing
Publication Date: November 13, 2012
Source: galley from publisher
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

While trying to save her brother from a witch’s fire four years ago, Greta was thrown in herself, falling through a portal to Mylena, a dangerous world where humans are the enemy and every ogre, ghoul, and goblin has a dark side that comes out with the eclipse.

To survive, Greta has hidden her humanity and taken the job of bounty hunter—and she’s good at what she does. So good, she’s caught the attention of Mylena’s young goblin king, the darkly enticing Isaac, who invades her dreams and undermines her will to escape.

But Greta’s not the only one looking to get out of Mylena. An ancient evil knows she’s the key to opening the portal, and with the next eclipse mere days away, every bloodthirsty creature in the realm is after her—including Isaac. If Greta fails, she and the lost boys of Mylena will die. If she succeeds, no world will be safe from what follows her back...

So, I went into Greta and the Goblin King thinking it would be similar to Labyrinth.  And I guess it was, though not nearly as much as I expected.  Little boys abducted from our world and taken to the world in which goblins exist.  Check.  Mysterious goblin king with intense attraction to the heroine.  Check.  Quest to save the boys and send them home to their own world.  Yup.

While there are similarities to the movie's premise, this story stands apart.  For one, Greta isn't a waspish, coddled teenager who wishes her brother away.  She tries to save him.  When she finds herself stuck in Mylena and unable to return to our world, she picks up a sword and starts fighting.  Greta is fierce and determined, but she is also vulnerable and lonely and not completely without her faults.  Differences aside, I still expected Greta to shout out, "You have no power over me!"  And then proceed to save the day by breaking the Goblin King's spell or whatever.

GatGK is fantasy-lite with a heavy dose of romance.  I usually like my fantasy the other way around...or at least in even proportions.  But for this book, the combination works.  I full-on expected Isaac, the reigning goblin king, to exude intensity and lay on the longing gazes...and I wasn't completely disappointed.  I wanted Isaac to be that bad guy that you hate to love, the one that you know the girl should stay away from but she just can't help it and she's not really fighting it all that hard.  But he ended up being so much more to Greta.  I still feel like I'm supposed to be pulling for Wyatt, since he is human and all that, but just like Greta, I felt the pull to Isaac.  I just knew there was more to him that what was on the surface.

I only wish I could say the same for the overall world of Mylena.  While the story suffers a bit due to the lack of world-building, the two main character arcs are pretty solid, making up for the fact that we never really delve into Mylena.  But that's not to say I didn't want to.  Such a wealth of fantastical elements to draw upon in a story like this, and the author barely touched on them.  I'm glad to know that this is a planned series because I'd really like to explore this world in-depth, not just its inhabitants.

Greta and the Goblin King is a fun debut, one that I think would even appeal to those who usually shy away from fantasy novels.  Not a lot of names and places to remember.  Not too many magical elements to try to comprehend.  Just a fun, quick read with some mythical beings and a hot romance (or two) thrown in for good measure.

Rating:  1/2

About the author:

Chloe Jacobs is a native of nowhere and everywhere, having jumped around to practically every Province of Canada before finally settling in Ontario where she has now been living for a respectable number of years. Her husband and son are the two best people in the entire world, but they also make her wish she'd at least gotten a female cat. No such luck. And although the day job keeps her busy, she carves out as much time as possible to write. Bringing new characters to life and finding out what makes them tick and how badly she can make them suffer is one of her greatest pleasures, almost better than chocolate and fuzzy pink bunny slippers.

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