A Darkness Found by TK White is the first book in The Darkness Trilogy. This review will not contain spoilers.

Everyone thinks they know her story, but no one really does. Grishelda was beaten and tortured all her life by the one woman who was supposed to love her. When she finally escapes and finds love with a king, Grishelda believes she has found her happily ever after, but when her new step-daughter drives a wedge between her and her husband, Grishelda must choose between risking the loss of her new life and falling prey to dark magic. 

Everyone thinks they know the story of the Evil Queen and her step-daughter Snow White, but everyone forgets that the Evil Queen was once just a girl called Grishelda. 

Beautiful. Dark. Twisted. Makes you wonder who the real villain is.

I loved everything about this story.  It pulled me in and did not let me go until the very last word. It left me wanting more, as all good stories do.

There are a lot of Snow White retellings out there, but most of them feature, you guessed it, Snow White. But this wasn’t Snow’s story. This was Grishelda’s, who is so much more than the Evil Queen, who loved with her whole heart. Most Snow White retellings don’t spend too much time on the Evil Queen’s backstory and even when they do, it all starts right before she meets Snow. Not this one! We don’t meet Snow until over halfway through this book.

This book made me question who is really the villain and who is really the innocent. So many aspects of it were similar to the story we already know, but all the twists and turns were in the little details. TK White did an amazing job of twisting the story just enough that I actually found myself rooting for Grishelda, instead of Snow or the King.

Grishelda was a fully rounded character who pulled at my heartstrings. I loved her and wanted a better life for her. I felt sorry for her and I felt anger on her behalf. It was so easy to see that there was more to her than just her magic.

The worldbuilding was done perfectly. There were enough background and history details that I was able to picture it and understand it without being dragged through 50 pages of information that I never would have needed to know. Even with the magic, it was completely believable. Everything had a reason and everything made sense in that world.

As for the writing, TK White did a really good job. The pacing of the story was spot on and so was the flow from page to page, scene to scene, and chapter to chapter. Even when there were time jumps, it still flowed seamlessly. I think I noticed only one typo in the entire book, which is extremely impressive because most books have at least a handful!

I gave this novella 5 out of 5 stars. I have always been a huge lover of fairytales. I highly recommend this book to anyone else who loves them.

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