Godmother

by Carolyn Turgeon

[ibeforem]

I chose this as a palate cleanser after my last read, and it didn't quite end up as I expected.

This starts out as sort of a retelling of Cinderella, except something has gone terribly wrong. Lil, Cinderella's fairy godmother, fell in love with the Prince instead of Cinderella, and for her troubles she is banished from the fairy kingdom, doomed to live her days in New York City. When she happens upon the opportunity to set up her boss with a young lady she met, she believes setting true love right will be her key back to the kingdom.

The story goes back and forth between present day Lil and fairy Lil, preparing to get Cinderella to the ball. I actually found the fairy parts less interesting, and ended up skimming pieces that didn't seem important to the story. I enjoyed the present day story more, even if Lil did a bit of wandering and acted inconsistently at times. One silly thing that bothered me was that one minute she would be doing something that required money, and the next she would be talking about how she couldn't even afford to buy herself a full meal at the diner.

I will give the author credit -- I didn't see the twist coming until it was practically there. Things got very dark, very quickly, and it was unexpected! In hindsight, I maybe should have seen it, but my ability to suspend disbelief is strong.

Overall, this wasn't bad, but it wasn't what I expected. So if you're expecting a happy love story, you might want to look somewhere else....