Gwendolyn Honeydale\u2019s father is dead, but she seems to be the only one who cares. Her vain sister, Fanny, wears a dress to the funeral so revealing that it distracts the priest, and her stingy mother allows the gravediggers to take as payment the coin in her father\u2019s mouth\u2014the one that tradition says is for paying St. Peter. With her father gone, Gwen is completely at the mercy of the older Honeydale women, who force her to sleep in the attic and shoulder most of the housework. The only kindness she finds comes from Paolo, the handsome young glassmaker who\u2019s just come to town to sell his wares in the marketplace. Gwen\u2019s mother has arranged to have Fanny married off to Tobias Prigghemp, the detestable eldest son of a local landowner and favorite of the king. Even worse, her mother wants Gwen to marry Jerome Prigghemp, the younger brother, meaning she can\u2019t act on the mutual attraction she feels with Paolo. When Gwen encounters an old woman in the woods, she offers her water, only to discover that the woman is a witch\u2014or, if the woman is to be believed, Gwen\u2019s fairy godmother. The woman grants Gwen an unasked-for ability of arguable value: Now, diamonds and roses tumble, unwanted, out of her mouth. While socially embarrassing, the idea of unlimited diamonds inspires the older Tobias to rescind his offer to Fanny and extend it to Gwen instead. Miffed, Fanny hunts down the fairy godmother and receives a similar\u2014if less desirable\u2014ability: When she cries, vipers and toads escape from her mouth. These traits make life quite a bit more complicated for the Honeydale sisters. Suspected of witchcraft, Fanny is forced to go on the run, and she soon becomes the apprentice of the fairy who cursed her. Meanwhile, Gwen is newly betrothed to a gorgeous prince and whisked off to the capital. Gwen is no happier with the new situation than Fanny, and both will have to figure out a way to free themselves from their bizarre circumstances.<\/p>\n
Carlton writes with great humor and specificity, forging, like Paolo with his glasswork, a unique sensibility within a world of familiar fairy-tale trappings. Here, Fanny sneaks into Gwen\u2019s wedding to the prince and invisibly watches her sister from above: \u201cFanny was still agitated with envy but it was obvious that Gwendolyn was unhappy\u2026She hadn\u2019t smiled once during the ceremony and looked as scared as a half-drowned kitten. She\u2019s just a commodity to the royals, thought Fanny.\u00a0More of a mineral mine than a queen consort.\u201d The first act of the novel is a fleshed-out but more or less faithful treatment of the Charles Perrault story \u201cThe Faeries.\u201d Carlton\u2019s contribution is to continue playing out the scenario, allowing characters who initially seem one-dimensional to deepen and change in unexpected ways. Readers unfamiliar with the original story will still enjoy this witty, immersive fantasy.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gwendolyn Honeydale\u2019s father is dead, but she seems to be the only one who cares. Her vain sister, Fanny, wears a dress to the funeral so revealing that it distracts the priest, and her stingy mother allows the gravediggers to take as payment the coin in her father\u2019s mouth\u2014the one that tradition says is for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":6093,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6092"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}