A Tale of the Five Hundred Kingdoms
Elena was supposed to be Cinderella, but things went a little askew. The local Prince was six, and Elena's stepmother left town, allowing her to try to escape. She was offered a job by what seemed like a kind, if a bit nutty old lady. Turned out, Bella was the Fairy Godmother for Elena's kingdom, and the job was to be her apprentice! Elena learns that Fairy Godmothers oversee the kingdoms, making sure that an invisible but overwhelmingly powerful force called the Tradition doesn't ruin too many peoples lives. The Tradition forces people's lives into fairy tales, songs and legends, but for every person who gets a happy ending, there are those who don't. Fairy tales don't always end happily, and even for those that do, people can die. And then there are the people who never get to finish their story, like Elena. Godmothers make sure that the bad stories don't happen, and steer the good stories to the proper outcome. They also make sure that the people who need to learn important lessons, become better people, and that sort of thing.
Elena becomes a Godmother, looking after several kingdoms. Of course, this means dealing with a lot of idiots. And unicorns. I'll explain the unicorns later. Anyway, while working out a part of one fairy tale--three princes, old lady (Elena in disguise), two of the princes are nasty to old lady, one is nice, the nice one get helped, the others get punished, blah blah blah--one prince is so nasty, she turns him into a donkey. Not exactly Traditional, but it'll do. Alexander--the prince--of course believes she's an evil witch, but at that point he's an arrogant numskull with a bad case of royal superiority, so whatever. He'll figure it out. Since she needs a donkey anyway, and she can't just let him wander around the forest on his own, Elena takes him home with her to work and hopefully learn something and get over his royalness.
This is going to be fun--for us readers at least. Maybe not so much for the characters. Heheheh.
I love this series. LOVE IT! Mercedes Lackey is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. The Fairy Godmother is a great book in a great series. Pure fantasy, not super dark either. Funny, inventive, and extremely well written, The Fairy Godmother is a must read fairytale mash-up.
p.s. I forgot the unicorns. They are very beautiful, but have no brains to speak of, especially in the presence of a virgin. They go all floppy and even more idiotic than usual. There is reason they are rare, despite the fact that they can fight if they have to and occasionally pull their heads out of the clouds enough to actually be smart. And they like to eat Elena's peas.
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