A 2014 Top Ten Popular Paperback for Teens
A retelling of Cinderella, Ash lives with her father in mother not far from the Wood, where the quickly disappearing magic of the land still manages to hang on a little. The philosophers of another land have brought their measured beliefs to her world, chasing away the supposedly superstitious belief in fairies and all the old ways. Bereft by her mother's death, and soon moved to her stepmother's house and forced into her employ, Ash wanders the Wood at night, often with Sidhean, a fairy who seems drawn to her and she to him. But then she meets the King's Huntress, Kaisa, and her desires change, asking Sidhean for help to thwart her stepmother and be with Kaisa as the prince looks for a wife, despite knowing that he will exact a great price that could keep her from Kaisa.
I liked this, but I think I might be burnt out on retellings of Cinderella. It seems that every author who decides to get into the fairy tale retelling biz decides to do Cinderella, and then I spend the entire book waiting for the story to hit all the major points (dad dies, stepmom turns her into a servant, she falls in love with someone royal, gets helped by magic, they live happily ever after) so that it can be over. Unless you're going to do something cool like turn Cinderella into a cyborg-in-a-plague-and-moon-people-ravaged future like Marissa Myers's Cinder, then it's hard for me to find a good retelling that I like. I did enjoy the world building and how Ash's interactions with Sidhean were true to fairy legends, and I also liked the lesbian take, but it wasn't enough for me to really make this retelling seem unique or different than all the others.
(Read as part of YALSA's Hub Reading Challenge.)
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