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    Wisdom's Kiss: A Thrilling and Romantic Adventure, Incorporating Magic, Villany, and a Cat
    Wisdom's Kiss: A Thrilling and Romantic Adventure, Incorporating Magic, Villany, and a Cat
    Wisdom's Kiss: A Thrilling and Romantic Adventure, Incorporating Magic, Villany, and a Cat
    Audiobook6 hours

    Wisdom's Kiss: A Thrilling and Romantic Adventure, Incorporating Magic, Villany, and a Cat

    Written by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

    Narrated by Anne Flosnik and Michael Page

    3/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Magic, cunning, and one very special cat join forces in this hilarious, extraordinary tale by the author of the Dairy Queen trilogy and Princess Ben.

    Princess Wisdom, known as Dizzy, longs for a life of adventure beyond the staid old kingdom of Montagne. Tips, a soldier, longs to keep his true identity a secret. Fortitude, an orphaned maid, longs only for Tips.

    These three souls might possibly attain their dreams while preserving their empire from ruin—if only they can bear one another’s company long enough to come up with a plan.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateSep 12, 2011
    ISBN9781455834907
    Wisdom's Kiss: A Thrilling and Romantic Adventure, Incorporating Magic, Villany, and a Cat
    Author

    Catherine Gilbert Murdock

    Catherine Murdock grew up on a small farm in Connecticut and now lives in suburban Philadelphia with her husband, two brilliant unicycling children, several cats, and a one-acre yard that she is slowly transforming into a wee, but flourishing ecosystem. She is the author of several books, including the popular Dairy Queen series starring lovable heroine D. J. Schwenk,  Princess Ben, and Wisdom's Kiss.

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    Reviews for Wisdom's Kiss

    3/5

    71 ratings14 reviews

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    • 4/5
      A variety of different characters tell their parts in this fairy tale story of romance and intrigue. The female ruling family of the kingdom of Montagne find their kingdom threatened by the plot of an evil duchess. A princess wants to join the the emperor's royal circus, a serving maid loves an acrobat who loves the princess who is to be married to the evil duchess's son.
    • 5/5
      This fairy tale-like story is told in a unique and humorous way. The story is pretty simple. A boy - Tips - and girl - Trudy - are each other's only friends. The boy has a chance to go out into the larger world and writes back to the girl. They grow up with the girl believing that one day the boy will come back to her. She gets a chance to go where the boy now is and finds that he has fallen in love with another - Princess Wisdom. Complicating matters is the fact the Wisdom is on her way to be married to a Duke and is accompanied by her grandmother and her grandmother's cat. Added to that we have a plot by an evil Duchess to take over Wisdom's kingdom by marrying her to his son and conniving a way to get her sister off the throne.What makes this story extraordinary is the style. This story is told from a variety of viewpoints. We have Princess Wisdom's stream of consciousness diary. We have the Encyclopedia of Lax. We have letters from the Princess's Grandmother back home to the Queen who is Wisdom's sister. We have Tip's letters home to Trudy. We have the memoirs of Felis El Gato who is the one who took the boy away and filters the subsequent events through his own self-centeredness and vanity. We have a play written to immortalize the story. We have Trudy's biography as told to her daughter. We have notes from the evil Duchess. All of these threads wind together to make up the whole story.The book is filled with humorous word play and is a treat to read. Each voice is so distinct and so different and does so much to illuminate each character. I recommend it, not so much for the story, but for the style of the book. I think anyone with a quirky sense of humor will enjoy this story.
    • 1/5
      It might have been good as a straight narrative, as a mix of plays, letters, etc.it is horrible.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed the various ways the story was presented from the multiple viewpoints.
    • 4/5
      This is a fun tale that references various fairy tales (Puss-in-Boots and Sleeping Beauty, for instance). Ben from "Princess Ben" is back and there is intrigue and magic and villains to be had in plenty. The format is fun as well - a mixture of drama, dictionary, memoir, and letter.
    • 2/5
      Although not obviously apparent for most of the book, this is actually a reimagined fairy tale. The whole thing does read like a fairy tale, with princesses and betrayal and cats and magic. What makes this book really stand out is the method that Murdock uses to tell the story. Most of the plot unfolds through characters memoirs written ex post facto, diary entries or letters written to others. There are also little snippets of plays interspersed between the other formats. These generally depicted a scene that had been already described but in extra-dramatic Shakespearean style. I thought this way of telling the story showed ingenuity and was surprisingly effective.

      The characters, however, did not meet with similar satisfaction. So many of them were incredibly dumb, including the poorly-named wisdom. Really the only one I liked at all was Trudy, who had a seriously awkward ending. She's the first character you meet, but her story is rattled off like a note in the end credits. The Queen Mother, who I believe is Ben from Princess Ben, one of Murdock's earlier novels that I have not read, is awkward. If her young character is anything like this crazy grandmother, I'm not sure that I want to read that book. If young Ben is not this way, why would you do this to her? And what happened to her husband?

      My only previous experience with Murdock was Dairy Queen, which I did not like. For one thing, I have no interest in football. For another, the main character was not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, which, since the story was written in first person, meant that the writing was not particularly good. Plus, she was a serious jerk to her best friend when the friend confessed that she was a lesbian. The writing in Wisdom's Kiss was, for the most part better, although Tips' letters drove me crazy.

      All in all, this is a very odd book, but it was rather amusing and constructed in a unique manner. I enjoyed reading it and my opinion of Murdock has improved slightly, but she's still not going to be a favorite author.
    • 2/5
      The multiple POVs made it difficult to get to know any individual character. The characters we spent the most time with were Trudy, Ben and probably the encyclopedia (if that can be counted as a character). These two were the only ones to have any kind of fleshed out character. Trudy tended to come off as a little whiny and seemed to have little character past her absolute adoration of Tips and Ben lost all of her spunk from the previous book and was relegated to the “grandmother-who-loves-everyone” role. Likewise, we only really got to see anything about Wisdom through her sparse diary entries. The only thing that they really tell us is that she thinks her life lacks excitement. So, Wisdom never really amounted to anything past the genre’s stereotypical princess who for no apparent reason wants more. Her nickname, Dizzy, pretty much sums up her character. Likewise, Tips was never really given any kind of character. His personality based entirely on his letters and what Trudy tells us. Neither of which can be trusted.What annoyed me the most about this novel was the romance. Maybe it’s because the characters are so flat that it was really hard to feel happy for any of them. The whole love triangle just fell on its face. I found it very hard to believe that someone would spend their entire life in love with one person and then in five seconds decide that it could only be a sibling bond because he thinks that he’s in love with someone else who he only saw for about a grand total of five seconds. Then to top it all off, he can’t understand why the girl he just rejected is sad. I understand the author’s point that you don’t find love the first time you try. But this message might have come through a little more clearly had Tips and Dizzy not fallen in love at first sight. Also, since Trudy was one of the characters that the reader got to know the best, it would have been nice to have her love life explained a bit more than Dizzy or Tips, whose POVs we only see briefly. Maybe if this book was not advertised as a romance then it would have been more enjoyable.
    • 2/5
      Overexcessive stylistic writing, a lack of plot movement, characters who seem to be more concerned with the number of curlicues they can insert in their writings than in being complex and likable... It's a shame that the straightforward and heartfelt charm of her D.J. Schwenk novels has never translated into her fantasy forays. Tone down on the epistolary cuteness and focus more on giving readers a good and engrossing story!
    • 5/5
      Princess Ben, one of the original fairy tales by Catherine Gilbert Murdock (author of Dairy Queen) was a fun read, but it is surpassed by the enchanted Wisdom’s Kiss: A Thrilling and Romatic Adventure Incorporating Magic, Villainy and a Cat. Duke Roger of Farina, at his mother Queen Wilhelmina’s insistance, is sent to court Queen Temperance of Montagne. However, he falls in love with her sister, Wisdom (nicknamed Dizzy), much to Queen Wilhelmina’s dismay.When he proposes and she accepts, Princess Wisdom and her retinue must journey to Farina. Accompanied by the Queen Mother, (Ben)evolence and her cat Escoffier, her ladies in waiting and guards, they begin their trek. The ladies in waiting, however, get violently ill at one of the inns along the way (I won’t tell you why). In order to save face and arrive with a smidgen of a retinue, they ask a serving girl, Trudy, take on the role of lady in waiting.Arriving in Farina, Trudy comes face to face with Tomas, a boy from her childhood who had been sold off to an adventurer six years prior and with whom Trudy is love.Oh, the complications Murdock tells us. Why does Wilhelmina want the marriage? What has Tomas been doing for six years? What does Dizzy really want? Are Ben’s letters getting through to Temperance? How does Trudy fit into all of this? And what of the cat?All of this begins as a play Queen of All the Heavens: A Play in Three Acts penned by Anonymous. But it unravels in letters from the Queen Mother to Temperance, entries in Dizzy’s diary, a story told by Trudy to her daughters, letters from Tomas to Trudy and so many more writings, enough to make you dizzy. Wisdom’s Kiss has remarkable characters and a wonderful story. As it says in the title, it is “a thrilling and romantic adventure, incorporating magic, villainy and a cat.” It is a late entry into my 2011 Top 10.I don’t know whether I want Catherine Gilbert Murdock to continue her fairy tales or go back to realistic fiction. Whatever she writes, it is anxiously anticipated.
    • 3/5
      Wisdom's Kiss is an innovative story told in an unconventional fairy-tale manner. Strange, no? Princess Wisdom, better known as Dizzy, yearns for adventure. Chambermaid Trudy becomes Lady Fortitude, but her love for her childhood friend Tips still burns. What she doesn’t know is that Tips is keeping secrets. That’s not all. The story is told from eight different perspectives, its sources ranging from letters to encyclopedias to straight narration. At first, it’s charming in a whimsical manner, and it rounds out the plot. However, it gets tiresome switching perspectives every couple pages.I do like how we get a feel for more characters through the multiple perspectives. Rather than rounding out the plot, however, the multiple perspectives ended up making it shallower, as the brevity of the time spent with each perspective in Wisdom’s Kiss prevented me from getting the depth that I look for in YA books. With the exception of braver teen readers, I feel that middle grade students will appreciate Wisdom's Kiss more, provided that they don’t mind the unconventional format.As I mentioned at the start of my review, Wisdom's Kiss is not your typical fairy-tale story. It is about falling in love and growing up. If you are looking for a magical romance, you’re looking in the wrong place. Murdock tells of the harsh reality of love and growing up. If you love realistic fairy tales, then give this a shot. I myself enjoyed reading Wisdom’s Kiss and found the realistic romance refreshing.. If you’re still looking for Prince Charming, however, you might want to postpone picking up a copy of Wisdom's Kiss.
    • 3/5
      Trudy has the ability to see the future - not always clearly, but she gets a general idea of something good or bad happening, and can often sense more specifics for people close to her. She lives her life as a maid in an inn, until the Queen Mother Ben and her granddaughter Wisdom turn up. Ben and Wisdom, or Dizzy, are traveling to Froglock, where Dizzy will marry the Duke of Farina.I'm looking at what I just wrote, and feel like it isn't a very good summary. But the story is written in such a way - multiple characters and points of view, told through later accounts by various players, a history, letters, diaries, and even a play (!) - that it is difficult to summarize sufficiently without giving away spoilers. Wisdom's Kiss is set in the same world as Princess Ben, which I thought had more humor and a tighter story. Besides having difficulty remembering things that happened in a book I read three years ago, there are references to events between the stories that I wasn't sure if I should have been familiar with or not. Between this and the constantly switching points of view (a device I enjoy when it's maybe two or three characters drawn very distinctly and well), I felt out to sea and never really fully engaged with these characters or their story.
    • 3/5
      As I sit to write this review I am still conflicted on how I feel about this book. I thought it was very clever to have the story told in different formats. Diary entries, memoirs, encyclopedia. letter, biography and stage play. I thought that the story was very funny, but the language in the book made it overwhelming at times. "Besides, I hear tell the heavens make a very fine blanket"-a riposte, it should be confessed, that he had wielded many tines, always to widespread mirth."I think I may have missed out on parts of the storyline because I was focusing on the wording instead of just the story in general. I was unprepared for this writing style when I first picked it up, and I'm always nervous about a book that has a dictionary in the back, it reminds me of homework.It took me some time to get into the story and the world, the development of what was happening. But I had a hard time keeping on track as well. I found myself having to read paragraphs over again to understand what was being said.This was not my first time reading a story with this vocabulary, but I was really caught off guard by it and could not maintain good concentration while reading.I am not a fan of classic novels, but if you are a fan of the classics and want something light, humorous and different I suggest you give this one a try.
    • 4/5
      The Little Bookwormhaven't read Princess Ben so I was unfamiliar with the world and with the character. I might have to go back and read it because Nonna Ben was pretty fierce. As was Wisdom. She was very tenacious and curious and fairly unprincess-like. While she wasn't my favorite character (that honor going to Trudy) she was alright for a princess. Trudy was the sweetest and the one with the most to lose as an orphaned serving girl with psychic powers. The love triangle that springs up between Wisdom, Trudy and Tips, Trudy's childhood friend and first love, was inevitable. But the real meat of the story, for me, was in the intrigue between Wisdom's kingdom and the duchy she is meant to marry into. I loved the outcome and how clever they solved the problem.I liked this book, let me say, I did. But it is told in many random forms like diary entries, memoirs, letters, biographies, a play and all of that together felt mish mashed. Random bits of important information are thrown in through in encyclopedia entries which seems like a lazy way of importing things readers need to know. The conceit is cute at the beginning but loses its cuteness about half way through the book. But it doesn't make the book unreadable. On the contrary, it is a charming book that I enjoyed very much. It was just one of the those things I couldn't help noticing.
    • 4/5
      A variety of different characters tell their parts in this fairy tale story of romance and intrigue. The female ruling family of the kingdom of Montagne find their kingdom threatened by the plot of an evil duchess. A princess wants to join the the emperor's royal circus, a serving maid loves an acrobat who loves the princess who is to be married to the evil duchess's son.