Among the Beasts and Briars by Ashley Poston

 genre: young adult fantasy

Cerys is the daughter of the royal gardener, and this has resulted in a childhood on the fringe of palace life.  While her business is flowers and plants, the reality of her world is that the wood surrounding her village is a cursed place, a land the steals the people she loves and turns them into something unrecognizable.  In a kingdom on the edge, Cerys knows that every relationship is fragile and precious, even the stray fox that has become a companion is beloved.  When what lurks in the forest makes itself known, Cerys is going to have to use her wits and her own kind of magic to try and save the people she loves.

The premise of this book is so good - I love plant stories, rescue stories, strong-female-character-coming-into-her-own stories. But this one just fell flat.  The dialogue is frequently anachronistic, so much so that it took me out of Cerys's lovely kingdom and dropped me into the weedy back lot behind the local high school.  While the plot moved swift enough, there were so many holes that by the end I found myself rolling my eyes and I guessed the major reveal within the first two chapters.  Among the Beasts and Briars was just too predictable and too blandly written to capture me.  While I feel like there is enough creativity here to warrant two stars, I can't bring myself to give it more than that.