“Part comedy, part love story, part everything-but-the-kitchen-sink”. I hope this sort of gives you an idea about the story but if not, this review sure will. Once Upon a Marigold is a novel written by Jean Ferris and it has won many awards. For example, it has won the award for a New York public library book for the teen age and an ALA best book for young adults. The book is separated into 2 parts and Part 1 starts out by introducing the readers to a character named Edric (called Ed for short) who owns 2 dogs, called Bub and Cate for short. He was taking a walk with them through the forest in which he lived in and the dogs started get attracted to a tree. Ed soon finds out that up in the tree hides a small boy, going by the name of Christian. Ed tries to take this boy home and asks for the location of where he lived but the boy says how he doesn't know where his home is and doesn't want to go back because his past life was too difficult for him. Eventually, the boy finds out that Ed is not human and is actually a troll. But he ends up being taken to Ed's home, which leads us to part 2 of the story. Part 2 is taking place 11 years later and Ed is enjoying a meal, prepared by Christian. During the time that he spends in Ed's cave, he looks through a telescope far, far away and sees a beautiful woman playing with 3 dogs in a beautiful yard. It was Princess Marigold in the kingdom across the river from where Ed and Christian lived. Every time Christian looked out of the telescope to see Princess Marigold, she was either reading a book or playing with her dogs, unlike her 3 older triplet sisters, who are always playing together and leaving Marigold to one side. Eventually, Christian and Marigold started communicating to each other by writing their messages in a small slip of paper and having carrier pigeons, Walter and Carrie deliver them across the river to each other. Christian starts to realize that they have a lot in common, like how both of them like reading Greek myths so when he heard that Marigold was going to get married, he had to find a way to get into the castle and stop her wedding. Not only because he thinks that he should be the groom instead of the princes but also because he found out that there was a purpose in Marigold getting married (for royal marriages are never for true love)!