Tales of the Frog Princess: The Salamander Spell by E. D. Baker

Emma was the Frog Princess, and her aunt Grassina was the Green Witch, the nicest and most powerful witch in the Kingdom. But how did she get that way?

This book is a prequel to the Frog Princess series, and occurs when Grassina is a mere teenager. Her mother and father married for love, but lately, her mother feels that Grassina's father doesn't love her any more, and doesn't show her the kinds of affection that he used to. But when he attempts to come through and show her the kinds of affection that he used to, he makes one mistake: he gives her a bouquet of flowers, and that sets off an old curse on her family.

Recieving flowers after the age of sixteen turns the recipient into an evil, ugly hag, and suddenly Grassina finds her and her older sister, Chartreuse, becoming slaves to her mother's new lust for power and evil. Whereas once her sister was her mother's choice to succeed her as the green witch, despite showing no aptitude for magic, Grassina's spoiled and much-beloved sister seems to be changed by her time as a hen, when her mother changed her into one shortly after the curse taking hold.

Grassina underwent the same sort of transformation, but she was changed into a rabbit. She ran into the swamp, where she usually took refuge as a girl, but found that the swamp was much, much scarier as a hapless rabbit. There, she meets a snake named Pippa, with an injured tail, and finds she can easily understand her. Pippa was injured when the hut of the witch who had imprisoned her fell in, and the witch blamed Pippa for all her problems, which lead Pippa to think that her own bad luck is poisoning everyone and everything around her.

Grassina persuades her this is not the case, but eventually, her mother's further cruelties drive her into the forest for good, where she meets a young boy named Haywood, driven into the woods by his own problems. He knows a bit of magic himself, and when Grassina discovers her own magical talents, it is up to her to save the Country of Greater Greensward from the magical terrors that have afflicted it since her mother changed and her father died. But can she overcome her mother's magic with her own, and save her kingdom from its former Queen Olivene?

I really enjoyed the Frog Princess books, and this book is a prequel to the series. However, because it is a prequel and I've read the original series, we already know the answer to one of the main problems of the series: that Grassina will not be able to defeat the curse that affects her mother, Olivene, as it takes Emma, from the Frog Princess series to do that.

Nevertheless, it is an interesting series to read, and the reader gets caught up with Grassina and her problems, from hearing her parents argue, which she hates, since her mother and father are so much in love the rest of the time, to her later problems of avoiding her mother's transformational punishments and dealing with the many problems that her mother's turning into a hag have brought to the kingdom.

It also shows that not all of the monsters in the Kingdom are problems, like the Vila that helps Grassina against the Werewolves, and later increases the love between Grassina and Haywood in order to help her save his life. One of the things I didn't like was how their love was "shown". Calling each other things like "My sweet, sweet darling, "Light of my life" and "my deepest love" just felt silly rather than romantic. Cheesy, in fact. And while I'm not always opposed to some cheese in a story, this just felt overly heavy-handed and intrusive. And while yeah, its hard to write real love for someone who is only thirteen or so years old, I just think there could be a better way than the way this was done.

But overall, the novel has much more good stuff than silly or bad stuff, and its worth a look. Just don't expect the lovey-dovey stuff to do more than make you gag.