Unfortunately, the plot doesn't make much of the magical elements (for example, the characters' encounters with a dragon and a nymph seem inconsequential), resulting in a disappointingly flat fantasy. The tale occasionally offers peppy dialogue and some comical scenes-particularly as the newly transformed Emeralda adjusts to catching flies with her tongue ("My eye-tongue coordination wasn't very good," she admits). Armed with this knowledge, Emma returns to her own time full of hope. Unfortunately she isn't successful in her efforts, but she does learn how to break it. Describing the duo's futile quest in laborious detail, the author pads her tale with some curiously drab characters, including another witch (who hopes to use Emeralda and Eadric in a spell she's concocting) and a bat and snake who reside in her cottage. Emma travels back in time to the day the curse was placed on her ancestor in the hope of preventing the curse from being cast. Too, is transformed into a frog, and the two leap off in search of the spell-casting witch to ask her to reverse her handiwork. The frog begs her to give him a kiss so that he will turn back into Prince Eadric, his identity before an evil witch turned him into an amphibian. This debut novel follows the adventures of 14-year-old Princess Emeralda and the talking frog she meets one day in a swamp.
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