Book Review: That Prince Guy and This Glass Heart by Mariah K. Porter

Snow White and Cinderella, not so much in retelling as in reweaving of motifs. Plus a lot of magical adventure fantasy.

Ms. Porter says retelling. I won't argue, but I think reweaving is more descriptive.

(I have my own retelling of Snow White, sitting out there unfinished. These are a different approach.)

That Prince Guy can definitely be considered a retelling, but the focus is not on the motifs from the fairy tale -- the wicked step mother, the magic mirror, the poison apple, etc. -- as on the context in which the elements are connected.

The motifs are there, but with twists: The wicked stepmother is somebody else's stepmother. The magic mirror breaks and is then used by the good guys. The poison apple is foreseen, and guarded against with partial success.

And the Princess is definitely not just passively enduring all the injustices of life. She may go along for the ride, but she takes her turn in the driver's seat.

Nor does she automatically trust her prince when she meets him.

And (drum roll) the kiss does get top billing, but even that has a twist. Or two. Or three. Not limited in effect to the Snow White character, but that's a spoiler, so I didn't tell you about that, okay?

This Glass Heart could be called a meta-retelling. There is no glass slipper for this Cinderella, only a glass heart. Or the idea of a glass heart.

And the Cinderella character is not being bullied by step-family. She feels ignored, slighted, and somewhat misused by her real family, but there is no step-family. That is, the step-family is not hers. And the wicked step-mother turns out not to be so wicked as all that, after all.

She does lose her real mother in the events of the first book, but  she gets her back in this book. And the fairy godmother role is taken in part by her real mother and in part by the stepmother (someone else's, as I say).

And the Cinderella character hardly makes any appearance at the ball at all, and she goes and leaves with her prince before midnight. (But is this a metaphorical prince or a real prince? And it's not a spoiler to tell you he can definitely do magic.)

Midnight plays a prominent part, but there are no magically transformed mice. (Is my memory right?) Magically transformed humans, yes.

If you're looking forward to the pretty wedding scenes, you may be a little disappointed with the endings. I did feel like the endings were a little sudden. But, on reflection, Ms. Porter ties up the necessary threads for each story. And she tells us up front it's a series. And pretty packages are an illusion, anyway. The reader's imagination is quite serviceable for those parts, if necessary.

The writing is a bit quirky, but quite readable, quite enjoyable, as long as you don't expect your fairy tales to conform to staid manuals of style.
 

These are also books I have had a chance to beta-read. I was going to wait until the third part of the series was done to write this review, but it seems Ms. Porter has hit some rough spots, at the time I post this review. Writing is a journey, an adventure of exploring the author's ideas and memories. If the writer herself does not take time to explore, the prose will lack. Rough spots can be good. They give the writer a chance to explore, and to add depth to a story.

But these reviews need to be posted, so more people can find her books and enjoy them.

Both books recommended, looking forward to the next book, when it's ready. (And not before.)

On Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B082XBLGVX?ref_=series_rw_dp_labf

Book Review: Spinning Silk by Taya Cook

I'm on the train recently, and I have the remarkable fortune of sitting across from a youngish woman who could make the cover of a leading fashion magazine.

Courtesy forbids that I describe her makeup and the style of her costume in too much detail for the same reasons I shouldn't just take a photo and post it without her permission. Perhaps I can say it reminds me of some of the older traditional Japanese styles. Or it makes my think of a mythical Jorogumo spider-woman. I wonder whether she is on her way to some cosplay event.

There are such writing prompts on the train every day, really. But I don't dare use them, at least not directly in my writing. Too much possibility of causing someone harm.

Common courtesy.

But this woman who was sitting across from me that day makes me think of characters from another novel I have recently had the privilege of reading at beta through the LDS Beta Readers group: Spinning Silk.

In Spinning Silk, Taya Cook creates a mashup of the oriental Tanabata/Qixi Festival myths of the cattle-herder and the weaver with the attractive and powerful shape-shifting Tsuchigumo and Jorogumo, whose creature forms are arachnid. What she produces should be considered a love story similar in substance to, and borrowing from the Tanabata myth.

As a child, Furi, the protagonist, is a member of the lower castes of a kingdom that looks like feudal Japan. Think parallel worlds or alternative realities.

Her life is cruel in the way we understand life in those lower castes was; she exists essentially as non-family chattel, spinning and weaving silk for her masters.  And what passes for her daily happiness is constantly subject to the whims of jealous members of the households in which she lives, until a deadly epidemic completely alters the patterns of her life.

Her work is beyond exceptional, and provides her with opportunities for impossible upward social mobility, ultimately into deadly contact with levels of society she never dared dream of.

Her mobility also brings her into contact with a mysterious young man of obscure and dubious origin, and this young man informs her of the truth of her own unbelievable heritage.

Gradually she develops deep feelings for the mysterious young man as she is brought into an intrigue to reform the shogunate from within, bring the military and imperial seats of power together, and bring a new era of peace unknown in the history of our world. And those feelings bring her into conflict with her role in the intrigue.

Equally gradually, she discovers a dark and deadly secret about herself, a secret which both enables her part in the intrigue and threatens the relationship she desires with the mysterious young man, repeating patterns of her own heritage.

Similarly to most fairy tales in their more primitive forms, Spinning Silk contains elements which may not really be appropriate for general audiences.

In her tale, Taya demonstrates typical consequences of a society in which power is accepted as the underlying principle of relationships between sentient beings. Her conclusion defies that acceptance, but the cost of that defiance turns out rather violent.

There is also a sexual element integral to the plot. Taya does not indulge in direct depictions of the sexual element, but she doesn't hide it. And her use of that element could be considered an implicit argument that sex has never been, and should not be considered, a safe form of recreation.

I don't believe in the moral-age-appropriateness rating system, so I won't say you should consider this a PG-13 work, but I do think you should not give it to younger teenagers without reading it first. And it may provide a springboard into discussion of important and meaningful matters, even for adults. Real literature can be difficult to read at points, and many readers will find parts of this story at least somewhat uncomfortable -- and, equally, thought-provoking.

Did I enjoy the book? Mostly.

For me, it hits a little close to home. But the pain I feel reading certain parts of it is evidence, rather, that she has captured something deep, real, and hard-to-capture about the culture.

Well worth reading.