The Wanderers by Cheryl Mahoney is the first book I read for the Once Upon a Time challenge.

It was fun to wander trippingly through a novel by Cheryl from Tales of the Marvelous, one of the Once Upon a Time challenge participants. The Wanderers proved the perfect beginning for this challenge, and I put The Wanderers into the fairy tale category.

The story opens in a magical land and features Jasper, an opportunistic fortune hunter, who puts himself in the right place at the right time to outmaneuver magicians and save damsels, in distress or not. Think ambulance chaser before there were ambulances. Or anything faster than a lackadaisical draft horse.

Jasper makes no plans (his Rule #2) other than to follow the open road in search of adventure and loot, but he keeps a mental list of rules to follow such as Rule #25, avoid offending magical creatures. Enter Julie, the imprisoned damsel NOT in distress, and Tom, the talking, indomitable cat. These two characters will manage to break nearly all of Jasper’s rules. The unlikely trio–Jasper, Julie, and Tom–become the wanderers, seeking adventure and skirting danger with humor and camaraderie. My favorite of their adventures is the lovely re-imagining of “The Twelve Princesses.”

There’s a cool metafictional sleight of hand in which the characters not only understand fairy tale tropes, but also know they’re in one…or several. Jasper, Julie, Tom use their specialized knowledge to outsmart ogres, giants, dragons, sea queens et al. to comic effect. Jasper is the idealist and Julie is the problem solver, but Tom, well, Tom is my favorite. I could listen to his dry wit and sarcastic asides all day.

Something the author does very well is to explore the inner lives of the characters. The internal dialogue flows well and complements the story with details about motivation and character arc. However, while this technique works well throughout the book, it works against the ending. By the time the story hits its climax, the reader already knows the who/what/why of the characters’ inner lives and is ready for the plot to control. Although this ability to get into the mind of the character is a great strength, it works to disadvantage by slowing the climax.

The book was perfectly formatted throughout, which is no easy feat. The grammar and syntax were expertly drafted–with one exception. Split infinitives. Split infinitives abound. Hint: There’s a reason Hamlet intones, “To be or not to be” rather than “To be or to not be…”

The Wanderers is listed as young adult, but based on subject matter and interest level, I think it would easily attract middle grade readers who would enjoy seeing fairy tale “rules” broken like occurs in the movie Frozen. I could see this book combined with some beautiful illustrations for the younger set.

The Wanderers is a fun mixed-up journey through the land of fairy tales that I recommend to all readers, particularly those with a soft-on for felines.