gilded ashes

Fairy tale (and myth) retellings are a particular weakness of mine.  The last time I met up with my DC FYA book club, someone joked that if they named any story, I could come up with a young adult or middle grade retelling of it.  I laughed with everyone else, but when they tested the hypothesis with two stories, I snapped right back with several titles of retellings.  I guess I read predictably?  *grin*  Earlier this year I picked up Rosamund Hodge’s debut novel Cruel Beauty, which was a fascinating mash-up of several legends, myths and tales.  Then recently I borrowed a library ebook of Hodge’s Gilded Ashes, a Cinderella retelling/companion novella set in the same world as Cruel Beauty.  It was just as good as (or possibly better than!) Hodge’s first story, which is saying something.

A romantic reimagining of the classic Cinderella fairy tale, Gilded Ashes is a novella by Rosamund Hodge set in the same world as her debut novel, Cruel Beauty.

Maia doesn't see the point of love when it only brings people pain: her dead mother haunts anyone who hurts Maia, and her stepsisters are desperate for their mother's approval, even though she despises them. Meanwhile, Anax, heir to the Duke of Sardis, doesn't believe in love either—not since he discovered that his childhood sweetheart was only using him for his noble title. But when Maia's and Anax's paths cross before the royal ball, they discover that love might not be the curse they once thought. And it might even be the one thing that can save them both.

What if Cinderella was complicit in her own abuse so as not to stir up even darker horrors?  Maia lives a precarious half-life: she serves her stepmother and stepsisters not because she is unloved (though that is true in her stepmother and stepsister’s case), but because she is too much loved by her mother’s ghost.  Maia’s mother made a devil’s bargain with The Gentle Lord before she died, and Maia has been navigating a truly horrible existence ever since.  When the Duke’s son Lord Anax decides to take a wife at an upcoming ball, Maia believes it may be a chance to find a way out of her father’s house.  The trouble is that Lord Anax is a wildcard, and Maia has been well-trained never to act on the longings of her own heart.

Well!  This may be one of the most twisted Cinderella retellings I’ve ever encountered.  The ghost of Maia’s mother is just one of the ‘villains’ of the piece.  All of the antagonists (and there are several) are of the complex, gray-area variety, though that doesn’t make them any less dangerous.  Meanwhile, protagonist Maia is a self-sacrificing liar.  If that didn’t spark your interest, I give up.  Really, though, this is a quite a story.  And even though there are dark elements, I would say that Gilded Ashes is an examination of what love truly is: caring enough to sacrifice yourself, being able to tell someone not only the Truth, but your own truths, and making the kinds of decisions that ensure another’s happiness.

The tone is grim and desperate (rather like Maia’s life), but there’s also an unquenchable hope at the center of it all.  That is the thing that keeps this tale in YA territory (and turns horror into something romantic).  As you can guess from that last sentence, there is a budding relationship that grows in the thorny soil of Maia’s life.  However, I would not call it the central focus.  The main bulk of the story revolves around the effects of individuals’ choices in a world that is built upon the magic of demons. Final verdict? Hodge uses the novella form to tell a deliciously dark fairy tale of Faustian bargains, danger, and love.

Recommended for: fans of fairy tale retellings and young adult fantasy, and Cinderella stories in particular (examples: Lili St. Crow’s Wayfarer and Mercedes Lackey’s Phoenix and Ashes).

cruel beauty

At the end of last year and during the holiday season I kept my head down, busily reading for the CYBILS first round of judging.  Perhaps that’s how I missed early buzz for Rosamund Hodge’s fairy tale retelling Cruel Beauty.  When I looked around in January, there were positive (glowing, really) reviews for the book on blogs as far as the eye could see.  Overnight I went from interested to must buy it the day it comes out.  And that’s the story of how I found myself reading (and liking!) a compelling fantasy about a girl who hates everything, but most especially her fate.

The romance of Beauty and the Beast meets the adventure of Graceling in a dazzling fantasy novel about our deepest desires and their power to change our destiny.

Betrothed to the evil ruler of her kingdom, Nyx has always known her fate was to marry him, kill him, and free her people from his tyranny.

But on her seventeenth birthday, when she moves into his castle high on the kingdom's mountaintop, nothing is as she expected—particularly her charming and beguiling new husband.

Nyx knows she must save her homeland at all costs, yet she can't resist the pull of her sworn enemy—who's gotten in her way by stealing her heart.

For fans of bestselling authors Kristin Cashore and Alex Flinn, this gorgeously written debut infuses the classic fairy tale with glittering magic, a feisty heroine, and a romance sure to take your breath away.

Nyx Triskelion is the daughter of the leader of the Resurgandi, a group pledged to overthrow Arcadia’s demon ruler, the Gentle Lord.  Before her birth Nyx’s father made a bargain to marry one of his daughters to the Gentle Lord on her seventeenth birthday.   Nyx has been training to kill that demon since age nine, all the while guarding hate in her heart, lest it mark her twin sister, too.  The trouble is that Nyx’s plan is a suicide mission. She knows it.  Her father knows it.  Her husband knows it.   The only option left is to carry out the plan, if she can.

The official book summary (in the gray box above) makes much of the Beauty and the Beast overtones in this story.  As many other reviewers have noted, however, Cruel Beauty does more homage to the Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche, and there are strands of many other fairy tales woven into the whole as well.  BUT.  This is more than a retelling.  It’s a book about memory, knowledge, sacrifice, and clues left at the edges, about self-hatred and redemption, and about the stories that can be built between the lines of any life.

Nyx is an interesting character. For the first fifty pages of the book, I wasn’t sure I wanted to keep reading about her.  She had so much poisonous hatred in her heart, and it (inevitably) spilled out into her life and the lives of the ones she was meant to love.  I’ve realized that I am not one to challenge myself by reading about difficult characters, so Nyx was a stretch.  What kept me going, then?  Her absolute determination, her intelligence, and her willingness to take unbelievable risks.  For those first few chapters I thought to myself, ‘Textbook depressive personality,’ and then for the rest of the book I was swept into the story, into the incremental changes in Nyx’s actions and purpose, and into a hope for a better ending.

Any first-person narrative rotates around its main character, but of course Ignifex (the Gentle Lord), his shadow and his house also loomed large.  I didn’t find the book quite as swoon-worthy as expected – the central romance didn’t appeal to me that way.  However, the banter between Nyx and her husband and the mysteries of the house did appeal, immensely, as did the theme of trust growing on rocky ground. 

I was also enchanted by the Greek mythology and theology sprinkled throughout.  There were notes of other myth traditions, too – it was really a smorgasbord of tales and allusions, and I adored that aspect.  I do think that could be a negative for some – if they don’t know their mythology well, the allusions would then seem like dead ends, rather than offshoots of world-building.  In that respect, I believe Cruel Beauty is one of those books that will mean or speak wildly different things to different readers – much of its meaning and beauty is hidden in allusion and metaphor.

In all, I thought Cruel Beauty was a rather wonderful read, with lovely bits of mythology and fantasy woven in to complement a story about a mysterious house and its owner, and the girl determined to destroy them both.

Recommended for: fans of Charles de Lint’s darkness, Robin McKinley’s Beauty and the Beast retellings, and Merrie Haskell’s The Princess Curse, those who like fairy tales, mythology and perilous bargains, and anyone who can appreciate beautiful writing that hints at the true self hidden deep in our hearts.