Review: Slipper by Hester Velmans

Title: Slipper
Author: Hester Velmans
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Van Horten Books
Publish Date: April 17, 2018
Source: PR

What's the Story?:

From Goodreads.com: "Her life is the inspiration for the world’s most famous story.

Lucinda, a penniless English orphan, is abused and exploited as a cinder-sweep by her aristocratic relatives. On receiving her sole inheritance—a pair of glass-beaded slippers—she runs away to France in pursuit of an officer on whom she has a big crush. She joins the baggage train of Louis XIV’s army, survives a terrible massacre, and eventually finds her way to Paris. There she befriends the man who will some day write the world’s most famous fairy tale, Charles Perrault, and tells him her life story.

There is more: a witch hunt, the sorry truth about daydreams, and some truly astonishing revelations, such as the historical facts behind the story of the Emperor's new clothes, and a perfectly reasonable explanation for the compulsion some young women have to kiss frogs.

This is not the fairy tale you remember."

My Two Cents:

"Slipper" is a fairy tale retelling of the story of Cinderella. In this book, we have Lucinda, a beautiful but unfortunate girl, born to a young woman who was pregnant out of wedlock and tragically passes after she has Lucinda. This book explores just what would have happened if a real woman told author Charles Perrault of her plight and gave him the inspiration for one of our timeless fairy tales.

I love, love, love fairy tale retellings. They are so much fun and while this one was fun, be warned, it also has some pretty adult topics not for the faint of heart. I loved seeing how the author chose to explain some of the details of the fairy tale: the fairy godmother, the slippers, the prince, etc. It is clear that a lot of thought went into how Perrault could have taken some of the less glamorous parts of Lucinda's story and turned them into something truly fantastic.

As with Cinderella, I found myself pulling for Lucinda throughout the book and hoping that her life would finally change for the better after she seemingly goes from tragedy to tragedy. I loved Lucinda and I loved "Mother Goose."

This was a good book! It will appeal to those that like their historical fiction with a touch of the unexpected and magical.