Godmother, The Secret Cinderella Story by Carolyn Turgeon

“Godmother, The Secret Cinderella Story” written by Carolyn Turgeon and published in 2009 is one of our new adult fiction titles. The novel flips back and forth between the fairy world and the present-day world of New York City. The main character, an older woman named Lil, lives in New York City and works at a bookstore in Manhattan. Lil’s secret, which she will let no one in the human world know, is that she was Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother and that she, instead of Cinderella, fell in love with the Prince. Thus, three hundred years ago, she was banished from the fairy kingdom and forced to live in the human world. Lil loved her life in the fairy world. There she was beautiful with red hair and green eyes, and could fly over the fairy lake with her three beloved fairy sisters, Maybeth, Lucibell, and Gladys. In the human world, she likes her job at the bookstore and working for the owner of the bookstore, a handsome, bookish, and kind man named George. With pure white hair, she is told she holds an aura of glamour and that she must have been quite beautiful when she was younger. Now her skin is quite wrinkled, and her after-work life is rather lonely – spent in her apartment alone each night where she reads books and watches television. Additionally, Lil has to hide the remnants of her fairy world, like the large feathery white wings across her back which she has to bind when she goes out and all of the white feathers floating in her apartment which she has to burn every morning. However, one day, upon befriending a fairy like woman named Veronica, Lil decides she will redeem her past mistake in the fairy world by acting as Veronica’s Fairy Godmother, sending her to an elegant ball, and thus giving Veronica a chance at true love. This, she is hoping, will be enough for her to be allowed to return to the fairy world she so misses. The writing is lyrical, pulling the reader into a feeling of the world of the fairies versus the New York City environment. You might want to check out the author’s lively blog featuring her writing and road trip adventures. Interestingly, this book has been optioned for a movie. It will be neat to see how it turns out.

Submitted by Karin Olsen