Fair Peril($19.99Value)

Description

Frumpy, fortyish storyteller Buffy Murphy has already been unceremoniously dumped by a toad of an ex-husband. The last thing she needs is another needy male passing himself off as an enchanted prince. And since the talking frog she carries home from a Pennsylvania pond could be far more valuable to her in his froggy form, she blithely ignores his pleas for a spell-breaking kiss. Her beautiful teenage princess, Emily, however, is far more easily seduced - though Buffy has tried to warn her rebellious daughter where a simple kiss can lead. And right now, it is leading them both - and a hunky blond former amphibian named Prince Adamus - to the mall. For somewhere between the Gap and The Limited lies the magical realm of Fair Peril - where everything is itself yet something other, where wishes become punishments...and where only a dutiful mother's considerable power of storytelling can salvage a child's future and a daughter's love. While walking beside a Pennsylvania pond, storyteller Buffy Murphy--flabby, dowdy, fortysomething--encounters a talking frog: Prince Adamus d`Aurca, who was ensorcelled (``trans-frogrified'') a thousand years ago by the coldhearted Queen of Fair Peril (Faerie) for refusing to become her lover. Yet Buffy, still trying to come to terms with her toad of an ex-husband, wannabe politician Prentis and his new Trophy Wife, Tempestt, is reluctant to kiss Adamus and thus return him to human form. Instead she consults her friend, the gay, leather-clad librarian LeeVon, who finds her a useful book (he produced them magically from blank templates; the contents change according to the needs of the reader). There, Buffy finds a spell that she accidentally activates to trans-frogrify LeeVon; being gay, he has to find a man to kiss him. With another slight mistake, Buffy turns Prentis into a frog. Then her rebellious, scornful teenage daughter, Emily, kisses Adamus, who becomes a stunningly beautiful man--and Emily's slave; together they run off to the ``Mall Tifarious,'' where a small shift in perception brings them into the Realm of Fair Peril--whose single- minded Queen has no intention of giving up Adamus. Witty, whimsical, and enormously appealing, if lacking the thoughtful underpinning that made Larque on the Wing (1994) such a delight. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.