The latest tale in the series is written by Liz Braswell and takes a bit of a different approach than the other novels. First off, it’s a frame story beginning at Sloane Kent Memorial Hospital with 16 year old twins, Danielle and Brenden. Danielle is there for her chemotherapy treatments and after endless rewatches of Tangled, Brenden decides to tell a different story on the Disney tale. One that’s a bit darker and more historically inclined because he is a history nerd. And no, it won’t have stormtroopers and gore, he promises.

Here comes the twist, “What if Rapunzel’s mother drank a potion from the wrong flower?” The moon drop flower to be precise, giving the infant long luscious silver hair. That inadvertently kills a maid when she hurts Rapunzel by pulling out a knot. The king and queen are horrified and though they don’t want to, they are unsure of how to protect others from a baby who can’t control her powers. She’s a baby after all! So calling on all the good wives, witches and magically inclined nurses, they vet who will take care of their baby girl until she is old enough to come home and in control of her mysterious hair.

As you can guess, Mother Gothel is that woman when she expertly comforts the baby. And she manages to get the parents to stay away from Rapunzel, allowing Queen Arianna to see Rapunzel but not interact with her. This makes the queen decide she can’t visit anymore, it just hurts too much.

And so the story goes, Rapunzel stays in the tower for a long nineteen years, coddled, yet lonely, trying to entertain herself with a strict schedule in the tower and dealing with the emotionally gaslighting barbs her mother throws her way. Oh, and she’s been told that she murdered her parents with her hair and that’s why she deserves to be in her tower forever. Which Mother Gothel reinforces by making her kill chickens using her powers. Yeah, it’s twisted which is fitting to the series.

Of course, even though she is indoctrinated to believe that she is dangerous and needs to be isolated, she still wishes to see the mysterious lights for her birthday which Gothel shuts down immediately. But two significant events occur, from her window she sees a thief hide a satchel in a tree hollow and two, one night she goes down to see what it is, she finds a crown! She also finds a friend in a little lizard whom she names Pascal and the best thing of all, he touches her hair and doesn’t drop dead! She believes her powers may be lessening, she can go! So after her request is refused again, she decides to find the lights on her own, and obtain the help of the infamous Flynn Rider to do so, using the stolen crown as leverage.

And so she heads off cautiously but ecstatically on her own, finding The Snuggly Duckling and… Gina! Gina’s a wannabe ruffian around Rapunzel’s age, eager to break into the business and to accept the gold coins Rapunzel offers for leading her to Flynn. Which is a quick job since he’s being chased by the Stabbingtons. They all get together and they make the plans to go to the lanterns. However, there’s a little problem. Dozens of hounds, lords and mercenaries are trying to track Rapunzel down.

Oh yeah, all these years Gothel has been keeping Rapunzel in the tower, she had also been planning to sell her to the highest bidder as a bride or as a weapon. And when she finds Rapunzel has left her tower, she tells her bidders, all prominent nobles, to do their best to find her so the auction can go as planned. And one of those bidders is the notorious Countess Bathory who bathes in maidens’ blood to retain her youth. I did say Brenden was a history nerd.

This was a rollicking fun book, and with Brenden telling the story, it gave it a different flair. Now it didn’t have a narrator commenting on the actions, it was more omnipresent third person, but just little things with words such as “demandy,” “murderhair,” goth look, talk about cults which I’m not sure they had back in the Renaissance or at least it didn’t have the same definition as we do today, you could tell it was a more modern day teenager weaving the story. It wasn’t distracting to me at least, but others may not enjoy it. I thought it was impressive that she maintained a distinct narrator voice in combination with the fairytale.

Plus having it as a frame story, there were several cuts to the modern day as Danielle commented on the story with some playful ragging on her brother and questions that would echo what readers might be thinking like “Why is Pascal a lizard and not a chameleon?,” “Where’s Maximus?,” “What was Mother Gothel doing at this point?” etc. And he does have a plan for where this is going with several impressive twists to answer those questions.

The first two are answered with Rapunzel’s magic hair as she begins to learn more and experiment with her powers. I enjoyed how Braswell is specific with her rules of magic in her universe and how Rapunzel’s powers are not so easily set in stone but change with the waxing and waning of the moon. It’s cool because it gives her variety, but doesn’t overpower her because it depends on which phase the moon is in.

The characters are well done here too. Obviously Rapunzel gets the most development as she goes from energetic and bubbly to. . Well she is still energetic and bubbly but a little worldly by the end of it. She has seen the state of the world, such things as inequality, what power and magic means to different people, and things that are considered a privilege or a curse also differ. She now knows what love is, and a better example of what mother should be even though a part of her still longs for the familiarity and the past good deeds Mother Gothel represents. Mother Gothel and Rapunzel’s toxic relationship is complicated for Rapunzel obviously as she loved her for so long and is hard to reconcile that her mother would do something as lie to her her whole life and try to sell her to the highest bidder. While I think it could go deeper and more emotionally wrought, I think Braswell did a sizable job of exploring the difficulties there. Especially as it is through the voice of Brenden who, of course, can’t be expected to deliver a detailed, push pull of toxic parental relationships.

Flynn was also in character going from charming rogue to a unsure thief who cares for this mysterious girl so full of warmth and life, but is also a lost princess while he’s a wanted criminal. Since Braswell did such a good job in previous books of tying couples together and making me really see their connection, this was a little lackluster. But again, it is Brenden telling the story and it’s clear he’s not a big fan of romance and kiss upon kiss so that might explain the more sweet but light coupling.

Gina was also a good character providing a more practical, no nonsense foil to Flynn and Rapunzel with a few scenes where she gets a chance to shine. Together, they make a nice threesome of friends.

I already wrote a bit on Mother Gothel’s relationship with Rapunzel, but as for Gothel herself, I think she was also done in character. Braswell managed to get her little barbs, her cloying comments, gaslighting and compliments to herself and her youthful beauty that make Gothel, Gothel. The other villainess, Countess Bathory is just as creepy and sadistic as one can imagine in the three scenes she has.

It even made a reference to another of Braswell’s Twisted Tales with Rapunzel’s braclet made of red coral from the kingdom of Tirulia aka Eric’s kingdom in Part of Your World.

There were some passages and conversations that seemed a bit too girl power rather than in character like Rapunzel spontaneously encouraging Gina to stand up for herself because her voice matters, or Raps snapping at Eugene not to tell her story. But in one of the cuts to modern day, Danielle is mocking Brenden’s male gaze when he neglects to focus on how the plot effects the characters like Queen Arianna so I see it as Brenden trying to tailor it best to his twin’s likes.

Also I must address the elephant in the room that it seems like it was inspired by the Moondrop from Tangled the series, and Gina as a Cassandra expy. While it does sound like that, it is not. Though Gina fills the role as level-headed sword maiden friend to Rapunzel, her personality is different from Cassandra’s. And the Moondrop Flower has a a distinct origin and set of powers while the series’ moondrop does not have that clear writing at all.

Overall, it’s a fun change to Rapunzel’s story providing a cool albeit darker alternative to the movie with distinct characters and a sweet yet realistic sibling relationship at the heart of it. This was especially heartwarming as the Author’s Note says she also dealt with having a sister in chemo. One that is happily healthy now, but the thought behind it is nice.

Even though it is a solid book though, I just didn’t quite connect with it as the others for some reason. It might have been the lighter tone or frankly, I’m not a big Tangled fan, so I give it 4 moondrops rather than 5.