Happy Book Birthday, Winterspell by Claire Legrand!!

The clock chimes midnight, a curse breaks, and a girl meets a prince . . . but what follows is not all sweetness and sugarplums.

New York City, 1899. Clara Stole, the mayor's ever-proper daughter, leads a double life. Since her mother's murder, she has secretly trained in self-defense with the mysterious Drosselmeyer.

Then, on Christmas Eve, disaster strikes.

Her home is destroyed, her father abducted--by beings distinctly nothuman. To find him, Clara journeys to the war-ravaged land of Cane. Her only companion is the dethroned prince Nicholas, bound by a wicked curse. If they're to survive, Clara has no choice but to trust him, but his haunted eyes burn with secrets--and a need she can't define. With the dangerous, seductive faery queen Anise hunting them, Clara soon realizes she won't leave Cane unscathed--if she leaves at all.

Inspired by The Nutcracker, Winterspell is a dark, timeless fairy tale about love and war, longing and loneliness, and a girl who must learn to live without fear.

I am very very excited to read this book!

The hype for this book is BIG. 

There's some mixed reviews of this book, but that just makes it more intriguing, will I enjoy it? 

I really hope I do like it, it sounds different. I don't know about you, but I didnt really hear the Nutcracker fairy-tale much as a child, so in my head it hasn't be over-told/used, so i'm excited to read the links between Winterspell and the Nutcracker.

Please, tell me if you've read and enjoyed (or not so enjoyed) Winterspell or whether or not you intend on sinking your teeth into it!